Rustee Rants - The most unread blog since the inception of the web

That John Rustee is a real idiot

2009-12-03T10:11:00.001+02:00

Ah my friends, you have no idea how delighted I am with the response my letter in the SA Jewish Report received. While for the most part I was completely ripped apart and made out to be, in usual SA manner, a disgruntled former South African with a chip on my shoulder and no grasp of logic, there were some people who responded intelligently. I would like to respond to two of those people briefly (The letters section of the latest SA Jewish Report can be found here).

John Brenner, while I understand the fear of speaking up, it does not mean that by shutting up and accepting the way things are that life is going to get any better. Quite the contrary if you follow the narrative of Israeli/Jewish history. South Africa is definitely not the Roman Empire or Mother Russia and the Jews have the knowledge that Israel and world Jewry would be there to support them if something along the lines of the Pogroms, God forbid, started happening in SA.

Victor Gordon, thank you for having the intelligence to understand my aims. Rustee John is a persona who’s raison d'être is to be coarse and callous while inciting reactions from his audience. I’m telling it like it is and that is going to rub most people the wrong way but if it gets you thinking, I have achieved my goal.

And that’s exactly what that letter did; it got people talking, thinking, discussing and while most of the people who wrote back decided to argue against my character, there were some who loved the article – more in Israel than in SA – and some who could not disagree that while SA’s fake Zionists may not be as bad as I make them out to be, there is a SERIOUS problem that needs to be addressed.

Where SA Jews go from now is anybody’s guess. I don’t think much will change until the material luxuries of life are either unaffordable, unavailable or the rising crime and hatred towards Whites and specifically Jews, increases to a point where they are forced to leave.

On a final note, I pray that South Africans will stop using the twisted logic that all expats are jealous and bitter because they had to leave this wonderful country to go live somewhere else. While Israel is not the perfect country it is made out to be, I do not regret moving here and if I could go back and make the choice of Israel or SA again, I would choose Israel every time.

So please, when you, the South African, are arguing with an expat about anything related to SA, do not bring up the “you’re just bitter” argument. It makes you look like an idiot and further blinds you from the truth that the problems in SA are real problems that cannot be swept under the carpet and ignored.

The Aftermath of my last post.

2009-11-30T16:30:00.006+02:00

Hello friendly friends. Well I received a lot of feedback from the last post. Some commended me while others slated me. Nothing like a great argument. The post was published in the SA Jewish Report under the name John Rustee. I was looking forward to next week's edition to see how I am completely buried and I came across a blog that slates me more than it does my opinion, whilst trying (and failing) to stay objective.

I will be courteous enough to return his favor and provide a link to his post where you can see my response in the comments section. Or you can just read my response here.

http://supernatural.blogs.com/weblog/2009/11/john-rustee-is-an-idiot.html

And my response:

Dear Stephen,

First and foremost I would like to thank you for the added publicity you have given to my opinion despite the fact that "it does not warrant a response".

I love argument ad hominem, it really makes for a thrilling read but has nothing to do with the matter at hand. I can assure you, this monkey can do a lot more than just read and write.

While I may be a narcissistic, patronizing, bigot, I feel hurt by your calling me a hypocrite. Please elaborate as my dodging your name-calling resulted in my missing your point.

A few things before you make a fool out of yourself by misquoting me:

1. I do not speak on behalf of Israel, I speak on behalf of myself and anybody who supports my opinions is included in that collective "we"; trust me there are enough of us. While you may find this surprising, I have had people contact me to thank me for saying what I said. While you may consider your opinion fact, the rest of the world does not. I know my opinion is just that which is why it was posted on a blog and not in a political journal. Considering I am actually in Israel, I think I can safely comment on the reactions that the SA soldiers have had in light of the situation and the response back home.

2. I never stated that people who don't make aliya are not Zionists. There are plenty of Zionists in South Africa whom I respect and plenty of apathetic people in South Africa whom I respect. The people I do not respect are those who are apathetic yet act like they are Zionists and seem to get terribly offended when you put them on the spot about it.

3. I do not have to list every anti-Semitic/anti-Israel occurrence that transpires in South Africa in order to make my point. Your argument further solidifies mine - too much is going on in SA and not enough is being done about it. The writing is on the wall but nobody wants to see it - maybe Ronnie Kasrils, the PSC and COSATU need to march again for you to get the picture.

4. I mentioned nothing of a call to arms. A call to action is an entirely different thing. Must I spell it out for you?

5. Again, I do not ask SA Jews to make aliya. Your being so far off the point makes me wonder if you read the piece to begin with.

6. My focus is on South Africa, I do/have not lived in England, Australia, the U.S. or any other diaspora country, so unlike yourself, I cannot assume what their motivations may be. I am simply begging the question.

I find it ironic that you blast my blog yet your conclusion basically alludes to the same ends as mine does, a call to action. Maybe your conclusion should really read "but the claptrap stench of Rustee’s rantings certainly shouldn’t be the spark that triggers it because its not fair that he gets the attention that I want."

Sincerely yours,

"John Rustee"

South African Jews should be ashamed of themselves

2009-11-23T09:45:00.001+02:00

I haven't written a real rant in a long time. Mainly because I feel that it frustrates me too much to concentrate so much negative energy on something that I can't really do much about, however, this one needs to be written. If anybody has issue with me after they have read this post, its too bloody bad.

Attention South African Jews: SHAME ON YOU! All of you. You all sit there in South Africa oblivious to what's going on in your own country and the rest of the world. As long as you have your big house, your fancy car per member of the family, a maid to clean up after you, all is grand in this world. Who needs a conscience when you have GAP patrolling your neighbourhood after all.

In the past few months, the signs of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism have been all to clear to the rest of us expatriates while the biggest issue in your lives is that some idiot messed up the South African national anthem at the big rugby match.

The funny thing about the South African Zionist is that he is not in the least bit Zionistic. Its not enough to have a Yom Haatzmaut party once a year or to sing HaTikva at school assemblies. The reason why the Muslim world has such a huge influence is not due to their size or numbers. It is due to the fact that every death of every single Palestinian is met with calls of "war crimes" by every Muslim on this planet. They are united against their enemy, be it the West, the Jews or Israel. However, South African Jews are simply to selfish and ignorant to care about anything but the materialistic bullshit that blinds them from the truth that they live in a third-world dump.

Several months ago, Jonathan Garb jeopardized the safety of every El Al passenger who flies from Johannesburg to Israel by exposing the security methods El Al uses to profile passengers. I was in South Africa at the time; there was no outrage, no concern for safety, nobody standing up for the Israeli embassy or El Al or even the safety of South African Jews.

The result - A security officer was deported this Friday. The South African authorities have threatened to deport all El-Al security officers. Well done guys, your apathy has resulted in, what may be, the end of direct flights from SA to Israel. Alternatively, El Al can yield and risk the safety of passengers and the state of Israel - Isn't it a shame that you might not be able to send your children on free birthright trips any more?

In August of this year, a South African had to cut his trip short because his indictment for war crimes had been made public. Two Muslim NGOs are working with a Muslim lawyer to make a case against 75 South Africans who bravely fought for the IDF and risked their lives for the safety of their people and Israel. According to South African "law" - Citizens are prohibited from fighting for another country. Every day, this is becoming a more serious threat. Every day, South Africans in Israel are waiting to hear what the Jews back home are going to do in order to defend them and allow them to come back to their families without the threat of being arrested.

And the more we wait for you to wake up out of your materialistic high, the more frustrated and disappointed we get. Do you think this is going to end at the airport or with soldiers? What about synagogues, Jewish events, Bar Mitzvahs, even your beloved GAP, it will all come to an end if you let these people send your sons to jail for having the balls to defend the country they love. It is your responsibility as a community and as individuals to use the democratic rights that you have to stand up and defend a just cause. Whether you think so or not, your safety as a Jew relies on the existence of Israel. These people are actively trying to destroy it and they are winning because you don't care to help us fight back.

But why should any single South African Jew take a stand for their own people? Its not going to make a difference in your life is it? The house will still be clean, the cars will be there unless you get hijacked - which is just one of those things that happen - and the kids will still go to King David to learn all about Judaism and Israel - or is it because in reality, you don't want your children integrating with blacks and gentiles? Make up your minds, either you want to be assimilated or you don't, you can't sit on the fence unless you openly admit that you are nothing but a bunch of hypocrites.

You are Jews and whether you ascribe to that ideology or not means nothing to those who are trying to persecute and destroy us. The Nazis did not ask people how Jewish they were on a scale of one to ten. The genetic connection was all that was needed and that remains true to this day. Left-wing, Right-wing or completely a-political, you do not have a choice in how somebody else identifies you. In their eyes, all Jews are the same.

South African Jews, you have a choice to make. Will you unite with your people and stand up for the South Africans who have sacrificed the material values of life to fight and support the country you claim to love. Or will you do nothing? The maid is not going to clean this mess up for you.

The Return of the Blogger

2009-11-22T15:35:00.001+02:00

Yes, it has been a long long LONG time since I updated, this might be due to work, school and other computer games. However, I have been convinced by my wonderful Tali, on our 21st monthaversary that we should put up the Cape Town pics, so here goes…

Day 1

We arrived at airport early Friday morning to fly off to CT. I found it amazing that people in South Africa stand in lines. The passengers lined up in single file and remained in the order they arrived in even after the boarding gate opened.

Unbelievable, the flight was pretty decent, we saw a castle on a cloud and other fun time-passing devices

We arrived to windy weather and went straight off to the Grand West casino with Tali’s parents.

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After the casino we went to drop our stuff at the flat and go feed the birds – this was an incredible experience. Throwing bread at pigeons and seagulls is very therapeutic.

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After the birds, Tali and I went with Michal and Aviv to the waterfront. We ate KFC before a huge Shabbos dinner – please don’t tell Diedre.

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We had my friend Dan over for Shabbat dinner and Tali showed her artistic side by not taking a single photo in focus.

Day 2

We were woken up early on Saturday morning by a retarded seagull. The alleged seagull screeched incessantly and wherever he went, the other seagulls seemed to leave. Tali and I transformed this simple act into anthropomorphic drama, where Mr. Duck’s embarrassed and the other ducks are laughing. 10 brownie points if you can correctly answer which song that is from.

Tali and I got up and went for a short stroll to the beach front. With a beautiful view in every direction we looked, I reenacted the retarded seagull’s lament.

Oh yes, the scenery…

We officially started the day when we got back to the house and the female made me macon

The food was good so I allowed Tali to join us on the red bus tour. We arrived at the bus stop about an hour early and occupied our time with random activities.

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The red bus company takes tourists on a scenic journey around cape town. This is what we saw:

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Kirstenbosch Gardens:

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The Bird Park:

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The touring was followed by lunch – fresh fish and chips which was awesome. Later that evening we went to the casino again. We watched a football match, a movie and had a buffet dinner at a Chinese restaurant. We also decided to play the machines a bit, Tali obviously has more luck than me – I walked in with R100 and came out with nothing, she walked in with R50 and came out with R700

Well at least I have her to win for me :D

Day 3

The next day, Charlie decided to sell Cape Town to us by taking us on the most beautiful scenic tour of the country side.

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From there we rushed off for lunch and off to the airport where I sat waiting hours for a delayed flight. All in all, Cape Town is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to and I can’t wait to go again.

Love and thanks to Diedre and Charlie and of course Michal – who generously gave us her bed to sleep in and Aviv who provide great colour commentary throughout the trip.

Pretoria and Jack Russels or a prelude to Cape Town

2009-09-25T13:58:00.001+03:00

Yes I know I haven’t written in a while but I work in Hi-Tech and Batman Arkham Asylum is seriously addictive.

So when we left off Tali was going to Pretoria for the night and I joined her that day. I met two of her very good friends, Tammy and Kenny, her mom’s family and Tali also took me to heaven. Yes I have been to heaven; it looks like this:

That is by far the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life.

It was awesome chilling with Tali’s friends and putting names to facebook profiles. Here are some pics from the day

Later that evening we went back to the Amlers to pick some things up and for Tali to meet my other other family in South Africa. Kari gave Tali lots of stuff and they did that women bonding thing that nobody can actually understand. While they were doing that, I was onto the second leg of heaven – a plethora of Jack Russels

Jefe: I have put many beautiful pinatas in the storeroom, each of them filled with little suprises.
El Guapo: Many pinatas?
Jefe: Oh yes, many!
El Guapo: Would you say I have a plethora of pinatas?
Jefe: A what?
El Guapo: A *plethora*.
Jefe: Oh yes, you have a plethora.
El Guapo: Jefe, what is a plethora?
Jefe: Why, El Guapo?
El Guapo: Well, you told me I have a plethora. And I just would like to know if you know what a plethora is. I would not like to think that a person would tell someone he has a plethora, and then find out that that person has *no idea* what it means to have a plethora.
Jefe: Forgive me, El Guapo. I know that I, Jefe, do not have your superior intellect and education. But could it be that once again, you are angry at something else, and are looking to take it out on me?

Meanwhile, back in the house, the girls did their evil voodoo stuffs

I had to go undercover by assuming the role of someone who is FABULOUS!

After the Amlers, we went for dinner with my grandparents and I had Karoo lamb chops which were awesome. At this point I have put on around 5 kilos and I am starting to feel like I can’t do this for much longer.

Tomorrow we’re off to Cape Town and trust me, the pics are magnificent.

Dinner with the family again and again

2009-09-09T11:44:00.001+03:00

The evening we got back from the park we went out for dinner to my aunt Shirley. Joining us were her husband Ian, cousins Carey and Darryl and their respective significant others Berelize and Catherine.

My aunt has a reputation for spoiling her dogs. Her last dog, Bambi, had its own tea mug and whenever the kettle was switched on, demanded her own cup of brew. Bambi also had a nemesis, a sharpei named Morpheus owned by two gay guys. If that is not the premise for the greatest series ever, I don’t know what is.

Bambi is now in the great tea garden in the sky and the new pet in the house is a huge ~~bear~~ chow by the name of patent pending.

Since chows are the most loyal dogs in the entire multiverse, people who are not family members often get devoured by just looking at them. Thus there was no interaction between us and Chewbacca.

Dinner was a tasty home-made roast and my aunt sure knows how to fill a person up. I think that every woman in my family fears somebody starving in their house and they all take preventative measures.

Its nice being the tall one in the family…

After dinner we went off to Avron and Steffan for some sheesha. Tanya joined in the fun as did Jarryd and Neil

The following day we went for dinner to the family again. This time on the Bauskin side. At this point, Tali was probably relieved that this was the last bit of my family she had to meet. We ate lamb ragout for dinner.

Tomorrow Tali goes off to Pretoria for the night and I will join her Thursday for adventures in ~~Pretoria~~ Tshwane.

The Big 3/5 and other interesting specimens

2009-09-04T13:12:00.001+03:00

The title of this blog was supposed to be “The Big 5 3 and other interesting specimens” but I can’t put strikethrough in the title, so you’ll just have to deal.

A little background information:

I love the Kruger National Park (KNP). I can recall many fond memories from the times we spent at our house next to the KNP. Several times a year we would go off for a couple of weeks to the middle of the bundu (bush) and live in paradise. One of my prerequisites when going to South Africa is a trip to the KNP. If I cannot go to the park, I cannot see a point in going to SA. This trip to the KNP almost did not happen; accommodation across the whole area seemed to be booked out as my grandparents and uncle struggled to find us accommodation. Eventually, someone cancelled and we got a place for the weekend.

Back to the story.

Day 1

We left JHB early Friday morning and hit the road for the 7 hour trip (with stops) to Mpumalanga which means “where the sun rises”. Our stops included the famous Milly’s trout farm and restaurant which used to play the funniest country music but now sadly, has lost that part of its heritage.

The next stop was Hall’s Gateway to the Lowveld. Hall’s is a farm where they make honey. There is also a shop with all kinds of amazing fresh produce from meat to dried fruit. Whenever I go there, it is a small tradition of mine to take a photo of the Malaria warning sign.

We arrived at our destination, Waterberry Hill, a small resort in a valley just past Hazyview and about half an hour from the KNP’s nearest gate. The chalet was perfectly adequate for our needs, it looked like this

For the 3 nights we were there, we had braaivleis, for the ignorant fools out there, braaivleis is barbequed meat. A braai is a fundamental part of being in South Africa and one must braai as often as humanly possible. Braaivleis is traditionally eaten with mieliepap, a kind of savory pudding made out of corn meal and eaten with tomato and onion relish.

The view from the resort is amazing, especially when the sun starts to set. There is nothing in this world like the setting of the African sun

I also taught Tali how to play Scrabble and we spent the evening outside chilling on the veranda and drinking real home-made hot chocolate

Day 2

For the sake of not writing a novel, I will just put up pictures with a brief description as to what we saw in the park. I will also be uploading the full album to my picasaweb album for your viewing pleasure.

The Big 5, for those keeping score

Phabeni gate was our starting point each day

Buffalo – as we entered the park we were greeted by a heard

Baby buffalo

Impala – the most populous animal in the park

Impala Male

Impala female

Red Hornbill

Red hornbill baby

Giraffe and baby

Zebra

And here is where things get interesting. Driving along the road, we noticed a helluva lot of vultures in the trees and circling in the sky. This normally means business.

Lying about a meter off of the road was a giraffe being swarmed by the vultures. We assume, based on the color of its fur, that the giraffe died of old age and the vultures were here to clean up the mess. I will attach a youtube video when I have bandwidth but for now, please enjoy the pictures. This is a very rare sight in the park, something that I have never seen before. Normally one would have to go on an organized drive with game rangers to see a sight like this – we were very lucky

We drove past the site for all 3 days that we were in the park. The smell was putrid but it was amazing to watch how the vultures devoured the giraffe.

Giraffe watch - Day 2:

Giraffe watch - Day 3

Back to day 1 – isn’t non-linear story-telling fun?

Kudu female

Kudu male

Bats

It was fun to watch people’s expressions as they realized the bats were above us while we ate.

Yellow hornbill

Klipspringer (Rock Jumper)

We stumbled upon another rarity on our first day, the ground hornbill or turkey buzzard. These birds look like something out of Jurassic Park and are slowly dying out due to stupidity. Only alphas breed and they lay very few eggs so to see these dino-birds is somewhat of a rarity. But what we saw was extremely rare

The two hornbills in the front left of the shot are adults. The smaller brown one behind them is a baby. It has not matured yet and has not developed colors. As you will hear, when I put the video up, the young one was crying out, I can only guess it was doing so to alert the older birds that it was there, or maybe it was hungry. I cannot speak bird, give me a break.

These are truly spectacular creatures. They are about the size of a medium sized dog and walk like you would imagine a velociraptor would.

Kingfisher

Warthog (Bonus question, how many warts would a warthog hog if a warthog could hog warts?)

Waterbuck male

Lucky little ladies at the watering holes (Bonus trivia question: Name the song)

Hatted girlfriend

Tarentaal

Sun going down at the end of day one

Fish eagle

Hopapitamus (Fun fact: The hippopotamus is the deadliest animal in Africa. The hippo kills more people per year than any other wild animal)

Elephant

Plover

Francolin

Gemsbok

Starling

Speckle-arsed sparrow

Pervert monkey

Definitely a sheep

Homo-superion (Mr. Extra Extra)

Veranda frog

Wildebees

The original 3 monkeys

A vein of the crocodile river

Zebras and wildebees drinking at the water’s edge

Crocodiles and maribou cranes

Birdbath with masked weaver et. al.

Giraffe with weird things on its face

Kudu male with weird stuff on its antlers

White rhino

Sunset on the way home

And that’s where we end the journey to the Kruger Park. It was an unforgettable experience with amazing sightings and lots of biltong. More scenic photos to come with our trip to cape town next week.

The full album will be up when bandwidth permits (when I get back to Israel).

TALI!!!!!

2009-09-04T09:53:00.001+03:00

Hey all, sorry that my blog has not been updated for a while. Actually I’m not sorry, I am on holiday so you will just have to deal. Seriously, enough with the letters and phone calls and stuffs… one second, phone… Ok I am going out with Darko tonight. Back to the story.

My beautiful angel came down from heaven, via Israel, on Wednesday morning. Upon entering the terminal, she looked like this:

Isn’t she the cutest thing ever? So we took her off to the house to drop her stuff and we went out for breakfast where my gran told some lady that she is my fiancé. We thought this was funny. That afternoon also happened to be my other gran’s birthday so we went to chill with her, my aunt and my cousin’s son.

Later that evening we went out for dinner. Yay more steak for Adam! It was pretty cold, so we dressed like this

This look freaked out the patrons of JB’s corner, more on that later.

Dinner was great, the Steakery in Bedford Gardens have amazing Angus steaks and we indulged in them for laughable prices. I cannot remember how much they cost but each steak was huge and well under 100 NIS.

We finished dinner with a drink called a waffle which consisted of Bailey’s and Buttershot

After dinner Tali and I went to JB’s in Melrose Arch for tea/Milo. As previously mentioned, my terrorist look did not go to well with the patrons who skeefed me proper (SA slang for “Looked at me with concerned looks). I also almost lost my Amex card in an ATM, we learned that First National Bank ATMs are crap and should be avoided. Tali also met a tree

The following day, Tali had already made herself at home, assuming her natural role in the kitchen

Oh and by that stage, I had contracted a strange rash; an allergic reaction to the “?מה אחי היית בטיילנד” bracelet I got at Jacob’s Ladder made my wrist look like this

As of this writing I have almost healed up after discarding the bracelet in my leather jacket.

Tanya and Avron came to visit. It was mucho funo

After the visit, we got ready to go out with the Modlin side of the family. We went to the Meat Co. in Melrose Arch and decided to SUIT UP!

Damn, those are the two best looking people I have ever seen.

The dinner was awesome, we dined with two sets of aunts and uncles and half-third cousin (very rare, mint condition).

I had beef ribs and Tali had lamb shank

We listened to old stories about the fantastic adventures of uncle Martin, cousin Ashley and some dude named Ralph. Oh and the Meat Co. has an awesome wine bottle display thingy

After dinner, Tali and I went to meet Darko and Justine for drinks at the Keg in Linksfield. Joined us for a while and we engaged in conversation so secret, the camera was not allowed to take photos.

Next time on the blog that is taking the world by storm; The Kruger Park.

We apologize for the delay

2009-09-01T12:25:00.001+03:00

Hello friendly friends. While I know most of you find my blog to be riveting stuff, I am currently unable to upload the rest of the blog in chronological order and since my idiosyncrasies will not allow me to upload out of order, I will only be able to update on Friday, once I get back to Israel.

Run-on sentences aside, I hope all is well with everyone and I look forward to seeing all of you.

In the meanwhile, please enjoy this picture of Tali and myself taken from Signal Hill.

Adam

Day 4

2009-08-18T22:34:00.001+03:00

Day 4 was a lot shorter than day 3. Erev day 4 began with dinner with my friend Anthony. We went to JBs corner at Melrose Arch and I had a cheeseburger. There are no photos because I don’t want God to see that I ate a cheeseburger – it worked really well with Adam and Eve and I am half the man that they were.

After coffee with Anthony, I went off to see Tanya. Avron picked me up and we went to visit the Greenberg household. We also got to speak to Lara in Israel.

It was really awesome seeing Tanya and Natasha again and meeting the Greenberg parents. Tanya also introduced me to the cats. Their one cat named גzyק (pronunciation pending) is pretty damned fat.

The other cat, named מאto (pronunciation “cat that looks like Garfield) is a ginger cat that is easier to pick up

After Tanya’s house, we went off to Avron for tea and Nargila/Hubbly/Sheesha. We sat freezing our asses off in the cold. There is logic behind this, if you don’t get it you are n00b~!

And it was morning

The next day I had KFC. KFC is the most wonderful thing known to man, however, in Israel it costs millions to get a meal. In South Africa you can get 5 pieces of chicken for R48 or 24 NIS. After lunch, I went with Liran for coffee to Greenstone and then to see G.I. Joe at the cinema.

The movie was completely predictable and the acting was up to shit but the action scenes were pretty cool. I kept thinking whether it would have been worthwhile for them to drop budget on the special effects in order to employ better actors, but in the end, it was satisfactory.

We then went through to Liran’s place to say hi to his brother and dad. He has 2 yorkies and one mix, I took these photos for Tali’s mom

Tomorrow my beautiful Tali arrives and I am very excited for her to finally be with me here. It will be amazing to share this holiday with the woman of my dreams :)

Still to come… dinner with the family pt1. and a trip to the Kruger National Park. Stay tuned.

Day 3 – Friends, family and food

2009-08-18T19:13:00.001+03:00

Hello friendly friends. I haven’t been able to go online really for the last couple of days but today I have internets. Kari, who reeks of awesomeness, picked me up so that we could work on assignments together. Yes I am in my third month of summer break and still have 2 assignments to hand in, my college obviously fails to see the point of a summer holiday. So let’s recap the last couple of days and the events that transpired.

Darko’s place

Day 3 started on Saturday evening (yes I am going biblical on your ass). Darko, along with Ash and Chris, picked me up to go over to his place. It is amazing what alcohol does for board and card games.

The first drunken board game we played was 30 Seconds. This game requires one to play a sort of verbal charades, describing a person/object/place on a card. The description cannot include words on the card or descriptions like “sounds like" or “rhymes with”. As many correct answers equals moves on the board subtracted by the dice roll or something like that. As Justine put it “0 is good and 2 is bad, if you get 0 you go more and if you get 2 you go less”, it made more sense as the drunk got nighter.

The whole scene unfolded in a tedious photography:

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The night was interrupted when Darko and Ashley transformed into Batman and Robin to drive into the night and fight crime at Ash’s house. <fiction> “You should have seen what the other guys looked like”, they told us as they limped in beaten and battered but victorious. </fiction>

After 30 seconds, we turned to a card game called Arsehole. The point of the game is to lose all your cards first. You then become the king of a nation with very low values and a failing economy. Second to fifth places become Queen, Middle-man, Arsehole 2 and Arsehole 1 respectively. In our version, Arsehole had to down a shot of Jack. when Jack ran out, we turned to pink champagne. The incident looked like this:

Using drunk-cam© technology to enhance the description, in reality, it actually looked more like this:

Tea at the Delmonts

The following morning, we got up to visit our good family friends the Delmonts. Unfortunately Simon, the youngest of the Delmonts was at work so we did not see him. Rob and Diana have been friends with my parents for centuries, and I grew up with Charlotte and Simon (who joined me for several years in a survival of the fittest contest which included events like slamming, punching and who can break the most fingers. Simon always got the sympathy vote, being half my size and all). Charlotte’s friend Kelly took Simon’s place at the gathering.

I also met the three newest members of the house hold, Rebecca, Rufus and a three-legged cat named removed by request of Warner Brothers inc.

Tea was served and we spoke of a range of wonderful things like crazy people, parents, becoming a Sangoma (Witch-Doctor) and more. An eye-witness claims that the scene looked like this:

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Family lunch

From Rob and Diana, we went off to my Aunt and Uncle in Kensington. They live in a beautiful house that my uncle designed.

On the menu for lunch were light starters, followed by a braai. My Uncle prepared and cooked the meat.

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After lunch we all sat around soaking up the sun and playing with the dogs. There are 3 dogs, Georgie and Rocko are border collies and Pepper is a pug. As Tali says, Pepper is “mooi van die leelikuid” (sp?) which means that Pepper is so bloody ugly that she is actually cute because of it.

And so that brings us to the end of a long day 3. If you enjoy reading my blog, you can click on the follow me link on the right column of the page. If you find any spelling/grammatical errors, please let me know.

Hope everyone in Israel is doing well.

Day 2 of my trippy trip

2009-08-15T15:19:00.002+03:00

Hello friends and family. Its a sunny Saturday afternoon and I am sitting in my friend Dale’s cottage. Dale’s family is like my second family and it is always amazing to see them. Dale and Kari are my brother and sister from another… never mind the details. Anyways, they look like this:

Yesterday was a pretty cool day, I met up with another good mate, Darko and his fiancé Justine. We went off to eat pizza at a place called Mimmo’s. I ordered a chicken-tropical pizza which has chicken and pineapple on a 23cm base. Before I ate it, the pizza looked like this:

Justine and Darko look like this:

Justine did something I have never seen before, she put ice in her white wine. I found this to be extremely strange and documented it with a photo. The photo of the wine with ice in it looked like this:

After lunch, I went to my old shul, it was really nice to be back there, obviously since it was Shabbat I couldn’t take any photos, but if I was able to and there was a power failure at the exact moment I had taken the photo, it would have looked like this:

After shul I went back to the grandparents for Friday night dinner. Gran’s homemade food is always great, we had meat stew. After dinner Kari came to pick me up.

First we went out to a club called Manhattan. Clubs in SA are much better than clubs in Israel. The dress code at Manhattan is formal, no entry without a collared shirt. There are four bars surrounding a central dance floor.

Drinks in SA are really cheap. I bought a round of 3 drinks for a total of R56 or about 28 NIS. Here are some pictures from the bar area in the club

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After Manhattan, we went of to Fontana’s chicken. We got Prego meals and I drank Iron Brew.

Iron Brew is an interesting soft drink, originally from Scotland. I am not sure what flavor it is, but it tastes good. You should try it. No really, now, go find some.

We wrapped up the night at a bar called Billy the Bum’s. Some shmuck knocked Dale’s double Jameson out of his hand and didn’t even offer to get him a new one. The place was pretty packed and there were girls dancing on the bar. The scene can be described as such:

We headed home and I passed out for a good few hours before we went off for breakfast. I will probably go sleep a bit now and tonight I am going out with Darko and Justine.

Things I have noticed Pt. 2:

1. Drinks are cheap

2. Clubs are really high society.

3. South African houses have these interesting back doors that are split in half and I have never understood why. They look like this:

That’s it for now. Stay tuned for day 3 and more.

PS:

I almost forgot, the Amler’s have several Jack Russels. Jack Russels are the most awesome dogs ever. They look like this:

Welcome to South Africa

2009-08-14T17:34:00.001+03:00

So here I am sitting in my grandparents’ apartment in cool but sunny South Africa. Its always surreal the first few days getting used to being back in SA. So far its been really good for a few reasons which I will get into later, but first, the flight.

We took off in a half-empty plane at about 9:30 am, I sat in a window seat, the view looked like this:

It was an extremely comfortable flight, probably because I had two seats to myself and the service was pretty good for El-Al. I watched Star Trek (again) and Night at the Museum as well as half of some Big Fat Greek Sequel or something. There was an Israeli guy behind me chatting up a South African woman for the duration of the flight which I found rather amusing.

When I wasn’t observing things inside the plane, I opened the screen and watched things outside the plane, the sky above the clouds looks like this:

I also tried to make shadow puppets on the opposite side of the plane. I thought a shadow of a bird flying next to us would make for interesting reactions, alas, nobody paid attention and my experiment failed miserably.

~~Johannesburg Inter~~ Oliver Thambo airport has gotten pretty damned big and my grandparents were on hand to meet me as I landed. They look like this:

After a quick stop off at home, we rushed off to meet the rest of the family at Spur, a family grill house which serves decently prized meals. Food in SA is cheap, I got a 500gr. juicy steak with chips and onion rings, a soft drink and a beer. The grand total came to R130 rand or about 65 NIS. I found this amusing. Before I ate my steak, it looked like this:

My family, who I did not eat, looked like this:

After dinner, we went home where I watched UFC 7 until I passed out.

This morning, we went off to a mall near my old house to have breakfast and do some shopping. My mother had tried to convince me that South Africa did not have shower gel. I took this picture of the great South African shower gel shortage:

I also went off to buy some clothing. I bought 6 items including dress pants, and an evening jacket for a grand total of R615 or around 300 NIS. This was also amusing.

I am now sitting in the lounge writing this post while eating biltong. Biltong, for those of you who don’t know, is the most wonderful creation on this planet. It is made out of dead, dried cow and looks like this:

So onto the things I’ve noticed…

THINGS I HAVE NOTICED:

1. South Africa is really quiet, its amazing that what they consider a noisy restaurant is practically white noise in comparison to Israel.

2. The food is rich and tasty.

3. Most things are cheap, especially if you are paying with foreign currency.

4. The people are polite.

Tonight I will be going to my old Shul and then off to party with my friends. Only 6 days until my beautiful girlfriend arrives :)

Hope you enjoyed this recap of day one.

The Adam Segal

Pre-trip musings

2009-08-02T16:22:00.001+03:00

This post is being written in Windows Live Writer. Seems like a pretty decent app so I will give it a go.

Its just under 2 weeks until I leave for South Africa and since I have such a great following, I think it would be splendid (nice is not a nice word) to document my journeys into deep, dark, Sandton City.

I am looking forward to a holiday, the first out of the country in almost 4 years. I will be seeing my family, Tali’s family and my good friends during the 3 week hurricane that is to be my trip to SA.

Today Tali and I bought a new camera for the trip. A Casio Exilim ex-S10 – Here, let me draw it for you:

Its a 10.1 megapixel camera with some sweet features including video in x.264 format which means all of you in the cult of Apple can download my vids to your iPods.

So I was playing around a bit with the cam today and took a few thousand pictures of the cats:

Norman

Roxanne saying hello

If anybody reads this blog, you can follow my pictures on my picasaweb gallery

So stay tuned for the adventures of Adam and Tali in Africa!

Technorati Tags: Adam,Tali,South Africa,Vacation

Gilad Shalit: The way it should be

2009-07-01T21:43:00.001+03:00

Dear Hamas,

We have been playing this game for 3 years. Two wars later we are still anxiously awaiting the return of Gilad Shalit. We have tried countless times to reason with you, we have tried diplomacy, we have tried concessions and we have tried brute force. Each time, the sacrifice of your people and our own has been worth keeping Gilad captive. You think that this is sending us a message that you dictate the terms.

Our patience has finally run out. In the box this letter is attached to, is the head of a Palestinian prisoner we have just executed. We will be killing 1 prisoner every hour until you release Gilad Shalit. Tomorrow we will kill 2 prisoners every hour and so on. There will be no mercy; women and children first.

We know that Gilad is currently alive and while you may think you have leverage, let us warn you, if he does not return in one piece, all 11000 Palestinian prisoners will be executed. There will be no more hostage situations; if an Israel soldier is taken captive, we will carpet bomb the nearest village to his last known location. We will mourn him as a lost soldier of Zion and honour him as one who sacrificed his life for the protection of this great nation.
Your time of emotional blackmail has ended, this country has learned its lesson with Ron Arad, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. We will do everything in our power to bring our soldiers home safely, but never again will Israeli soldiers be used as bargaining chips to fuel your machine of terror. The choice is yours, return Gilad Shalit peacefully or face the consequences.

Once Shalit is returned safely and you recognize Israel's right to exist, we are willing to sit down and discuss the future of our peoples. There will be no more talk of land for peace; peace for peace is the only way to ensure that your people have a state of their own in the near future. Give up your arms, show us that you are responsible leaders and that you are willing to listen and cooperate for the sake of your people and then you will reap your due rewards.

But let this message be a warning, the Jewish people have survived persecution for millennia, nations have enslaved us, tortured us, attempted to annihilate us and yet there is one constant, they have fallen to dust and our people have gotten stronger each and every time.

The choice is yours, either you return Gilad and work with us to plan our joint future in the land of Israel or face the wrath of a nation who is tired of giving in to your demands without seeing an iota of progress.

Choose your fate.

The people of Israel

My thoughts on Ep. 6 of The Ultimate Fighter

2009-05-12T13:25:00.003+03:00

This week's episode of TUF is one of the best I have seen in a very long time. Two great submission victories and 4 teeth knocked out - What more could a fight fan ask for?

Martin Stapleton vs. Cameron Dollar:

This was a quick match which ended with Dollar getting a submission victory. The lead-up was focused on Dollar being terrified of fighting and how the pressure of the house is getting to him. Dollar appeared to be humbled very quickly when he got picked to fight Stapleton.

Dollar reminds me somewhat of Chris Leben, a young cocky prick who needs a little bit of humbling to develop into a good fighter. The difference is, Leben believed in himself. Hopefully this performance will calm Dollar down a bit so that he can focus on fighting instead of talking shit.

As far as the fight goes, I think Dollar got a bit lucky with his early strike but managed to capitalize on it and put Stapleton away. I am not sure who was in more shock about the result, Dollar or Stalpeton but the fact that dollar, scared as his was, kept to his gameplan of taking the fight to the ground.

In my opinion, if a fighter doesn't show up scared, there is something very wrong with him. As long as Dollar can continue to harness his fear and convert it into match smarts, he will be fine. I will wait for him to fight again before I sing his praises but so far, he looks like he has the potential to be an undercard fighter in the UFC.

Frank Lester vs. James Wilks:

Frank Lester has got to be one of the most annoying people in the history of TUF. He is the kind of guy who gives fighters a bad name. James Wilks on the other hand seems to be a reserved, intelligent, well spoken English "bloke".

The lead-up to this fight showed Lester exhibiting the exact opposite behavior of his U.S. team-mate. Lester, for some reason, has developed a hatred for James Wilks and proceeded to badmouth him constantly, going as far as to call him a traitor because he trains in the U.S. but is on the U.K. team. Maybe Lester should consider a career in pro-wrestling because he can talk shit but he can't fight.

While Wilks focused on training for the fight, Lester focused on beating Wilks up in the house and his pointless hatred distracted him from actually doing anything productive in his training for the fight.

My favorite part of this episode was Demarques Johnson's offer to pay Lester $100 for knocking out one of Wilk's teeth... Sweet sweet irony will make an appearance later in the show.

The fight itself was, in my opinion a complete domination. While Wilks respected Lester's striking game, Lester, unprepared, didn't know Wilks even had a standing gameplan. The first round featured some back and forth striking, Wilks' attempts at several submissions and some clinch battles.

Towards the end of the first round, Wilks nailed Lester with two sick knees, bloodying up his nose and knocking his four upper front teeth out of his mouth and lodging them deep into Lester's mouth guard.

Michael Bisping's antics were in my opinion pointless as the fighter was ready but the mouth guard wasn't.

The second round was a complete domination by Wilks. Lester realized the hard way that despite Wilk's preference for Jiu-Jitsu, he is not a one-trick-pony. Wilks gets the takedown, passes to full mount exactly as he had trained to do and applied the arm-bar. Did anyone else notice that Lester tapped before the arm-bar had even been locked in?

Overall, this is the kind of episode we should see more of in TUF. While Junie Browing was probabvly great for ratings, the core fans want to see good action from promising young fighters. Hopefully there is more of the same to come for the rest of the season.

In defense of Anderson Silva

2009-04-20T16:51:00.002+03:00

Anderson Silva has come under fire recently due to what many consider to be two lacklustre performances against Patrick Cote and Thales Leites. Many feel that Silva is not doing enough to finish fights and judging by the boos in Montreal at UFC 97, many feel that they are not getting their money's worth.

In my opinion there is one person alone to blame for this. That man is Patrick Cote. Going into his fight at UFC 90, Cote knew all about how Anderson Silva's destructive power and amazing clinch had led to the demize of several great fighters including Dan Henderson and Rich Franklin. His vicious knockout power, exemplified in his match against James Irvin showed that Silva is not somebody you want to mess with. So Cote's plan was to go in and do what nobody else could do, his goal was not to win but to survive.

Unfortunately for Cote, his leg got the better of him and all his planning to remain elusive, not engage too aggressively and hope to frustrate Silva into making a mistake was for nought. Cote did not show up for this fight, he did not show up to take the title away from Silva and so he gave Silva no reason to exert more energy than he absolutely had to.

While Cote lost due to injury, there is no doubt that he was always going to lose that fight at the rate that it was going. Silva picked his strikes, outpointed Cote and never looked to be in trouble.

Thales Leites went into UFC 97 with the exact same attitude as Cote. His intention was never to beat Silva, it was to survive against him and as horrible as Cote's offense was, it was a million times better than Leites'. Leites came in confident that he could take Silva to the ground and dominate him with his Jiu-Jitsu but bar one succesful take down, Leites did absolutely nothing, he did not impose his will, he did not come near to a submission and when Silva got back to his feet, he was not going to let Leites put him on the ground again.

Leites was defeated from the second his takedown was stuffed. He had nothing but a ground game and once his ground game was removed, he stood in the Octagon for 20 minutes and tried to survive.

It's easy to blame Anderson Silva for these back-to-back boring debacles but there is more to MMA than highlight reel knockouts. Anderson Silva's responsibility is to defend his championship, not to attack challengers. He is the champion and when somebody comes into a fight with him, they should have the respect to meet him whether it be standing or on the ground. It is not Silva's responsibility to throw caution to the wind because his opponent refuses to have the balls to fight for the belt. No wonder Silva is bored, no wonder he is playing cat-and-mouse games.

The fact of the matter is this; Leites dropped to the floor after every close quarter engagement, he did not try to pull guard, he offered it to Silva and Silva is not stupid. There is no person in this world who can justify why Silva should have welcomed the opportunity to go into a BJJ black belt's guard, its Russian roulette and only inexperienced fighters would have done so.

We all love to see exciting fights but we are spectators and Silva is pound-for-pound one of the best fighters in the world. Sometimes to make his money, he needs to have boring fights, not because he doesn't want to fight but because his opponents don't bring their A game or their A game isn't good enough.

Alternatively, Jorge Gurgel who is an awesome fighter and a great ground tactician, threw away his UFC career for exciting fights. As exciting as Gurgel's fights were, they resulted in 3 losses in 4 matches and a boot out the door. Silva in contrast is a champion with a 10 fight win streak, (12 if you disregard the Okami match) and the last time a match of his went to a decision besides UFC 97 was in 2004.

UFC fans are spoiled, bloodthirsty and at the end of the day, don't care about Silva unless he is winning in spectacular fashion, so why should Anderson Silva risk his health, his title and his legacy for a bunch of jaded morons.

Anderson Silva is one of the greatest and when a fighter gets the privelege to get into a cage with Silva, he should go balls to the wall, not fall on his back every 20 seconds, its disrespectful to Silva and its an insult to all the other fighters who sit on the backburner waiting for their shot at the gold.

If the UFC want Silva in exciting fights, they need to find him opponents who challenge him mentally and physically. Until such a time, Silva will nonchalantly play with his food in order to earn his bread and butter. If people could appreciate the art of his elusiveness, the creativity of his strikes and his ability to adapt his tactics and strategies to complete neutralize his opponents, they would not be booing his efforts. Anybody can land a lucky punch, Matt Serra landed a championship worthy lucky punch; but it takes a real talented fighter to maintain the legacy that Silva has.

A Waking Nightmare

2008-02-19T21:13:00.004+02:00

I dreamed of you last night... I was standing on the edge of a dark, dead forest. It was night time and the pale light of the full moon projected a silhouette of dread in front of me. You appeared, you took me by the hand and you assured me that everything would be okay. You guided me through the brambles and as we walked, the hard ground turned to soft grass, the dead trees blossomed and sunlight filtered in from behind us stopping dead against the invisible wall of darkness in front of us.

Suddenly the scene changed, we were in a small rowing boat during stormy weather and rough seas, something happened; I fell in. I struggled against the wild tide and tried to climb back into the boat, I slipped and started to sink. As I began to sink into the depths below, a hand reached out and grabbed me. It was your hand. You pulled me back to the surface, the sea was calm, the sky was blue.

I woke up, I was stuck in the forest again, barefoot, thorns under every step. I walked on bleeding feet for hours never finding the edge of the forest. After hours of excruciating pain, I gave up and passed out. I found myself in the water again, I drowned for hours and eventually I sank, I lay at the bottom of the sea waiting, drowning, over and over again.

I passed in and out of consciousness for years, I tried to swim back up but the pressure of the sea was too much. I thought of you through all of this, your image made the pain go away for a short while. Boats would pass over from time to time and I hoped that you would be there to save me. But each boat passed over with out slowing down and soon I was unsure as to how much of the sea had been replaced by the salty tears I had cried waiting for you to come back for me and pull me from this nightmare.

You were not there. I did not wake up.

Wasting Away

2008-02-17T04:08:00.002+02:00

Something always happens at midnight. Something special and that's not necessarily a good thing. Wouldn't it be fitting if I had a grandfather clock in my room? It would add some sort of dreaded expectancy to what I am about to write. I won't know what it is until I finish it, but I know it cannot be a good thing.

The clock strikes midnight. Another day, another death, another reason to cry. Its not coincidental that our tears, those which show our greatest emotions come from our faces. We all hide our feelings yet we were born to show them. My face is a canvas on which the salty, transparent paint drips down never leaving the same pattern twice. Its no coincidence that another term for transparent is "see-through"; interpret it as you wish.

The clock strikes one. Evil has so many manifestations. People lying in hospital beds being defeated by something hardly visible through a microscope. Does a virus have emotion? "You have been accused of killing your host and are sentenced to death with them, how do you plead?" "With a smile on my face; your honour." What is the nature of this world in which a normal day can become a deadly day? Who has the wicked smile when a mother loses her baby? Who laughs maniacally when a family dies in a car accident while the teen who didn't want to go out that day picks up the pieces of her guilt-ridden broken heart?

The clock strikes two. We are born to ultimately die; this is our purpose. Our bodies racing against nature, life happens so quickly, most of the time we don't even stop to pay attention. Birds swimming in a puddle after fresh rains, that's great but we have appointments. Once the appointment with destiny comes, I'm sure most of us would have chosen to give those birds a few seconds more of our time.

The clock strikes three. I am lying in bed but I cannot sleep, not while this sinister message inside of me lingers. Writing helps get it out. But am I selfish for unleashing it on the rest of the world or noble for warning others of the dangers that lie within? I'm on special today, 25% off if you use the right credit card. What the hell does that even mean?

The clock strikes eternity... What time is it when a person laughs, cries, dies?

Musick

2008-02-15T18:26:00.005+02:00

Why does it seem like happiness is temporary? Am I still waiting for this axe to drop? One day it may actually sever my head from my body but for now it just drops onto the back of my neck sending a blunt pain through me.

I'm used to it, misery is seasonal and yet we cling to it.

Its funny how music is generally divided between pieces about love - and happiness and how brilliant the world is now that the artist is swimming around in a fish-bowl pumped with dopamine - and the pieces where the artist is figuratively slitting his wrists and spilling the blood all over his sheet music.

Sometimes we make instruments laugh, sometimes we make them cry and if we're feeling particularly talented or refer to ourselves as "tortured souls" we can get an entire orchestra of instruments to tell the world how we feel.

Music makes it all so much better. No matter how angry the music is, the fact that somebody else was so miserable as to refer themselves to a paper psychologist seems to put a smile on our faces.

The music plays us more than we play the music.

Shoulders

2008-02-14T01:33:00.003+02:00

"Another one?" they ask. They sit on my shoulder. That doesn't make any sense because I'm lying down yet I am writing and imagining myself to be in a sitting position. Its funny how they sit on my shoulder... bastards. Like they could ever have the audacity to make their way into my head. But when it all comes down to it, they are my head.

"Two in one day, someone is getting a bit eager..." Well who the hell asked you in any case? I can do whatever I want because I was granted the immortality of mind. Its encased at the moment but give it a few years. When the worms eat the rotting flesh, that's when you'll see who needs shoulders.

"He talks like he has the right to evaluate his own mental state, how haughty!" Oh and what the hell do you think you are? You sit there like you own a stake in something yet every bit of good I have ever provided you, love, affection, wealth, you had some negative comment about them at one stage or another... except the shoulders, never had a problem accepting those.

How many of you are there in any case? One for each topic in my head that could potentially have negative consequences? Too many; even one of you is too many. But who am I fooling? Would you like some more negative energy to feed on? How about a nice shoulder to sit on? I keep you because I choose to, not the other way round and don't you forget it!

"He talks to us like we exist!"
"Preposterous!"
"Yes, very foolish, we could not sit on his shoulders for he is lying down"
"Internal conflict, how ingenious"
"We're staying right here, on the shoulders, after all if he imagines himself in an upright position it must be so"
"Well only until the worms eat the rotting flesh, then we're in big trouble"
"Best make the most of it while we can"
"You're going to publish this piece of so-called writing now are you?"

You're damned right I am!

Thoughts of... what?

2008-02-13T01:49:00.000+02:00

I always thought poetry was a cliché way of getting your thoughts out, who needs it?

Roses are red,
Violets are blue;
A lame clichéd form of expressing oneself
And look, I'm an artist!

How do I expect anyone else to understand me when the the door to my mind is locked and not even I possess the key?

I feel like I have touched death recently and in some ways have lost what little innocence may have remained inside me. Anger and disappointment have engulfed me and yet I am enjoying myself in general.

Does anyone actually give a damn? Maybe, there could be one person out there whose entire satisfaction in life is finding out what I give a shit about. I feel like I go to bed unfulfilled on a nightly basis yet I accomplish so much. It's probably just what I tell myself in order to stop the insanity from taking over. I think it would be much better that way... insanity, why the hell not?

I'll write a song about it, then I'll really establish myself as a bleeding heart, "wow, it has emotions" they'll say as they watch my imagination prowl its cage like a hungry tiger waiting to escape. If dreams that should torment don't, what does that say of the mettle of the person dreaming them?

Dreams... Well at least they entertain me and why not? Someone should appreciate the amount of thinking and obsession with mundane things my mind undertakes on a daily basis. Rather be obsessive than blind to the fact that the puzzle which is this world isn't something any grade-schooler could put together.

I'll write a short story about it, what better way to show the world how I over-evaluate myself. Shoot a film, pretend I have talent. Talent? What a stupid word... dogs have talent when it comes to barking, what a joke. People have talent when it comes to oversimplifying and overcomplicating their lives all at the same time.

I'll write a blog about it, that way I'll feel like I'm not alone. We all are, we just do it together.

Olmert: It was let MY people go.

2007-12-04T11:37:00.001+02:00

Greetings friends,

So once again, our genius of a Prime Minister has released a batch of "palestinian" prisoners as a good will gesture. 451 this time and what has Israel received in exchange? Qassamim, excuses and the usual hate speech.

Maybe one of Olmert's advisors should tell the twit that firstly, it's not Pesach and secondly, Moses said "Let MY people go" not "Let THEIR people go"

This brain dead simpleton also opened his big arrogant mouth at Annopolis which at it's core was a big mistake. Olmert (Who shall from now on be known as Sesame Street) should never open his mouth, it should be sewed shut and as a "good will gesture" we will sew it into the shape of that goofy smile he loves so much.

So what did Sesame Street say at Annapolis? He said that Israel would be willing to give parts of East Jerusalem to the people of Narnia in exchange for peace.

WOW! BRILLIANT! Let's give these people a segment of our Capital city because giving them a part of our land worked so well last time! The peaceful environment in Sesame's head is reminiscent of those old cartoons where the antagonist gets bashed on the head and consequently has birds flying around it.

Yes Gaza is thriving and Sderot is under no threat of Qassamim at all. Just ask them. All the while the ignorant left carry on living their ignorant lives because after all, they're not the ones facing barrages of rockets day after day.

Ultimately, we have a major issue on the home front which needs to be dealt with before we even thinking of the people of MiddleEarth. That issue is apathy. Sesame Street had a 3% approval rating in March of this year and we got one rally! One protest of note. Its not enough, it's about time we sew this idiot's mouth shut for good.

Too many good men and women died during the 6 Day War for this ignoramus to give it away. And then what? We give them East Jerusalem and suddenly the Qassamim won't only be landing in Sderot. No peace plan has ever been worked out with the people of EarthSea and every time we have given them land, they have used it against us.

The time has come for the "palestinians" to show us that they are willing to give us peace in exchange for land!

In Honour of a Fallen Hero

2007-03-11T13:45:00.000+02:00

On the third of March 2002, Steven Kenigsberg Z"L, lost his life in an act of terror. This post is written in his honour.

I remember it as if it was yesterday. Sitting in my friend's lounge as his mother was in hysterics, crying about the boy she had just seen on the news. Maybe it was a mistake, they had said in the report that he was 27; maybe crossed wires had led to the misinformation. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

I had heard a lot about Steven in the 8 or so months I had been in Israel, I had never met him but everyone seemed to speak about him with pride in the fact that they knew him. I walked home that day thinking to myself "Wow it's so strange how different it feels when a terrorist attack hits close to home." I was about to find out just how close to home it would hit.

I walked in to my apartment at the Raanana Absorption Center, said hello to my mother and mentioned that someone that everyone knew was murdered the night before. She asked me his name and as I told her, she looked at me and said what still haunts me to this day; "Steven Kenigsberg was your cousin."

At a loss for words, I walked out of the house, I didn't know how to react, I didn't know what to say. This hero that everyone else knew and loved was my own relative and he had been taken away before I ever got the privilege of meeting him.

Years passed and Steven would enter my mind every so often. I was so angry with the world, so angry with myself. Why had I never met him? Who had fought with whom in the family to prevent us from knowing each other? What if he was that one guy at the party I never said hello to? Or that South African in the restaurant or at the bus stop, who I listened to intently but did not wish to make conversation with? How many opportunities did I potentially have to meet Steven that I threw away?

Yet through all of that time, I felt so selfish, here I was thinking about Steven when I didn't even know him and yet the people who had known him, they had a right to feel loss, they had the right to mourn him.

I did however learn a very important lesson, the loss of Steven, was everybody's loss, whether you knew him, or whether you had never or would never have met Steven, he was Israel's and the world's loss. From then on, every soldier who fell in battle, was a family member, every civilian killed in terrorist acts, they too were family members. And yet Steven's image, his smile haunted me.

Several weeks ago, I stumbled upon a group on a popular website, set up in honour of Steven. I decided to write in saying how I had heard such great things about him and how I had only found out he was my relation after the tragedy. His brother, another unknown cousin, was the moderator of this group and he immediately messaged me to find out how we were related. After several messaging sessions, he invited me to Steven's hazkara.

Last Friday morning, I made my way to Hod Hasharon, met Marc, my newly found cousin and off we went to the cemetery. I stood at Steven's hazkara, fighting back tears constantly, wanting to break down and just release all of the emotion that had been built up within me since that night 5 years ago. I listened to Steven's family speak about him, in honour of him and with tears rolling down my face, I tried to imagine what it would have been like to have known my cousin, the hero. And I sit here now, with tears rolling down my face and Steven's smile, it still haunts me.

After the ceremony, I went to the Kenigsberg's house, I spoke with Marc about Steven and how I felt that I almost had no right to mourn him since I didn't even know him and my mourning would be incomparable to Marc's or to the rest of Steven's family. He countered by saying that everyone mourns Steven in their own way, regardless of how they knew him. We also spoke about life, quantum physics and plans to perhaps go to the same college. I met Steven's Step-Mom and brothers and sisters, I spoke to Steven's dad. I finally felt, even if it was in a very small way, that I had gotten to know him just a little bit.

Steven may be gone from us physically, but he lives in his family and in his friends every single day. My cousin, a true hero, who fell in a cowardly act of terrorism, someone I never met, but a person I will never forget.

On Friday the 9th of March, I finally got to say goodbye to my cousin Steven. I only hope, that one day, I will be able to say hello to him.

Rest in Peace Steven Kenigsberg Z”L, my cousin, my hero, may your smile haunt me for years to come.

When happy is not Gay!

2006-11-02T17:26:00.000+02:00

[DISCLAIMER: The thoughts shared in this blog are my own and not the thoughts of anyone else including all members of Blogger.com

Furthermore, the statements herein are directed specifically towards individuals who wish to obstruct peace by purposefully holding their "Gay Pride" parade in Jerusalem.

I have nothing against gay people who choose to behave modestly instead of flaunting their homosexuality in mine and other's faces. I have gay friends and family members who I respect and admire, their sexual preference is not my business nor is mine theirs.]

Greetings my Rusteefarians, Today, as always, we brush on a controversial topic. A huge debate is raging in

Israel

at the moment about a gay parade that is to be held in Jerusalem this month. The main players in this monumental fight are the gays and the religious Jews. I'm going to introduce each side and tackle their arguments before giving you my thoughts on this entire situation.

We'll start off with the gays. The gays are proud. What they are proud of, I don't know. They claim that homosexuality is something you are born with and not a choice. Well then why are they proud of this? I'm left-handed, not by choice, I was born that way. You don't see me running around saying "I am proud to be sinister, let me dress up in left handed clothing and do left handed things all day!"

Obviously this gay "Pride" is absolutely drenched in shame and so their remedy is to shove it down our throats and accuse every hetero-sexual man, woman, child and aardvark that we are oppressing them. They believe Israel is a democracy and if they want to parade in the capitol that is their right and nobody can stop them.

In their corner they have the liberals. These people make me sick. "Live and let live" they say. They appreciate John Lennon's message of do whatever the hell you want, there is no heaven, no hell and no omnipresent being to judge you so all is good and have fun.

These people, who are generally against religion and hate all the old school confounds of morality, see no problem with the gays doing their stuff in Jerusalem. If the religious have a problem with it, they are nothing more than oppressors on the level of the Iranians and should stay in the Synagogue reading their holy books. Once the religious are law-abiding, tax-paying, army-serving citizens who don't denigrate Israel, they can have their say too.

In the blue corner, we have the religious and conservatives. The religious argument is simple. Jerusalem is our holy city, Judaism views homosexuality as an abomination and by holding this vile parade in their holy city, you are spitting in the face of their religion.

The secular-conservatives view the issue as follows: Homo-sexuality is wrong, men are not supposed to sleep with men, women are not supposed to sleep with women, we have children to protect and so this kind of parade should not be a public spectacle. A vegetarian would not like people eating meat in their house and so in a heterosexual society, being gay and flaunting it is offensive.

Now I fit into a specific category that is partly religious, fully conservative. I believe this parade is wrong, it’s inciting violence and it needs to be stopped before things get out of hand. Might I remind you before I continue, this is my opinion, therefore its right. If you think otherwise, go to someone else's blog and carry on listening to Lennon.

First off, homosexuality is not natural, all across the animal kingdom, male creatures mate with female creatures to produce a fertilized egg and offspring. This is how animals, including humans, are still around today. Now there are certain animals such as snails that are a-sexual or can change their sex so, if gay people are willing to take on the class of Gastropoda Erectus then they can have their parade. Homosexuality in nature is destined to die out, gay animals will not mate and so their genes die. Therefore nature is an oppressor such as the Iranians.

From a religious point of view, homosexuality is a complete abomination.

Leviticus 18:22: "Thou shall not lie with mankind as with womankind: it is abomination."

Leviticus 20:13: "If a man also lie with mankind as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they should surely be put to death...."

What we have there is a pretty clear indication that in Judaism at least, homosexuality is a big no-no. Christianity and Islam regard it in a similar manner. The Roman Catholic Church has decided that anyone who is gay should be chaste.

So with that being said, holding this parade, in the middle of the religious centre of the three major religions, all of who look down on homosexuality, is just looking for trouble. The religious people will not stand for it. Judaism has been around a lot longer then "Gay Pride" so people should respect that and if they have to have this parade, relocate it.

Of course the people who scream democracy are missing the entire idea of this country. Israel is, was and always will be a theocracy. As long as our flag is a Star of David on a shawl, as long as our national anthem cries for the Jewish soul and as long as we remember that the state was established as a Jewish state after six million Jews died in the holocaust. With that being said, even if Israel was a democracy, the appropriate action would have been a national referendum to let the people decide what was best.

Live and let live is not the answer. Homosexuality, once taboo is becoming a norm. This has to stop! First it will be homosexuality, then it will be incest, paedophilia, polygamy and God knows what other evils. Now before you argue that I am being irrational, let’s break this argument down.

Homosexuality, according to the gays, is something they are born with. "You cannot choose who you are attracted to" is the standard argument for this kind of conversation. So does that mean that if a brother and sister both consent to being with each other, they should be allowed? What about father and daughter, mother and son? "You can't choose who you are attracted to and if the gays can do it why can't we?" What about a 15 year old and a 30 year old who sincerely love each other? "If the gays can do it, why can't we?"

The gays need to understand that nobody cares what they do behind closed doors. I have friends and family members who are gay and what they do in their bedroom is their own business. The religious would have just as big a problem with a Mardi Gras or hedonism parade in Jerusalem because the message is one of immorality, physical lust and values that conflict with their religion.

If gay people want to be gay, that’s fine, but we don't need to know about it nor have it shoved down our throats because of their self-loathing. Believe me, the reason left-handed people don't have parades is because we don't feel ashamed and therefore don't seek justification.

Now the people who want democracy need to understand that democracy should not entail doing whatever you want regardless of other people's feelings. By having that parade in Jerusalem, you are inciting violence and offending people. Things have already gotten violent between the religious and the police and last night a Shul was vandalized in Tel Aviv.

I for one am not going to stand idly by and let this parade go through. If it is not cancelled, I will be in Jerusalem to protest. It is against all that I believe in and I don't need my children growing up in a society where you can do whatever you want.

John Lennon had a beautiful message, but what he did not seem to grasp is that people want to do what they want regardless of other people's feelings. If John's message is to truly be appreciated, this parade should not be held because it will hurt others. At the end of the day, the gays will still be together, but the people of Israel will be further torn apart.

"You may say that I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will live as one”

Where's Walid:

Paris, 1887, A woman's life was ruined as the Eiffel Tower was constructed on her house. Unaware that her house was even there due to the World's Fair being held in the location, constructors began building the famous French landmark.

When asked for a comment, the woman said this:

"I was sitting at home have a glass of Bordeaux, when all of a sudden I heard a huge crash, I ran into the bathroom to see a giant metal leg had been driven through the ceiling. I quickly ran to my bedroom and grabbed my thimble collection and miraculously made it out just in time to see my house crushed by the giant structure. I was so scared; I don't know why they would do this to me."

We at Rustee Rants, have uncovered the only photograph ever found of this tragic event:

Back from the Living

2006-10-17T04:00:00.000+02:00

Hello my dearest Rusteefarians. Yes, yes, I know it has been some time now and many of you may feel abandoned but I am back. Better than ever? Probably not.

The thing about writing this blog - and the direction it seems to have taken me - is that there is literally so much screwed up news on a daily basis that its hard to choose what to write about which means I'll generally write about nothing.

However, at 03:55 in the morning, the brain plays wonderful tricks on you. Appears out of nowhere when you thought you lost the thing ages ago. So since we last spoke, our wonderful government did.... Well nothing actually. The dog is being wagged vigorously what with our figure-head president having a rape case thrown at him and people have casually moved on with their lives.

I'm okay with that when it comes to Tsunamis; London Bombings; Katrinas and all sorts of other SEPs(Somebody Else's Problem), but this is a little different. This is my problem. With 100 plus soldiers dying in vain and the 3 soldiers who were kidnapped in the first place, still not home, its time for a revolution.

Yet softened liberal Israelis will continue to sit at home and debate whether gays have rights too and if its acceptable for them to defile my holy city. That's not even worth debating, its an absolute disgrace and if you think otherwise, please write to "The People Who Give A Shit."

The worst thing about it is that the news these days only seems to feature one name. Gilad Shalit. Now I feel terribly for the Shalit family but since when was he the only kidnapped soldier? What about Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev? Why are they not getting the same media time? Is the government trying to make us forget that there are actually THREE kidnapped soldiers, not withstanding that Ron Arad celebrated his 20th anniversary since his abduction. I honestly hope that the man is long dead, his country failed him, why should he carry on living as a prisoner? I just hope he is at peace, dead or alive.

But in all honesty, this war took a hell of a lot out of me. I was a wreck pretty much every day, what with 5 or so of my friends being inside Lebanon. Thank God they all came back safe and if any of you are reading this, know how proud I am to be your friend, thank you! The truth of the matter is that I actually now fear that this pathetic excuse for a government cannot defend us from the trouble that brews in our near future. If Olmert is not out soon, I don't know what fate we will face.

Despite the recent war, Israel had quite the quiet time during the High Holidays this year. I think I am learning to appreciate this time more and more every year, it really is a beautiful season. While praying for inscription into the good book of judgment this year, I found it extremely difficult to hold back the tears whilst thinking about my fallen brothers and those who have suffered so much during this time.

Enough about that though. One of the top items on the news lately is the "Is it a nuke? Isn't it a nuke?" debate regarding North Korea's... NUKE. The sheer idiocy of this debate is mind-boggling. Does it really matter if the underground explosion in North Korea was a nuke or not?! The fact that they say it is, is enough evidence to show that if they do actually have one, they are not worrying about the consequences of using it.

This whole fiasco proves again that the United Nations is nothing but a worthless organization being manipulated by insane dictators, communists and muslim terrorists. Spot test: When a bully beats up a child at school with a baseball bat, do you:

A) Threaten to take away his stationery.
B) Make him sign a document stating that he will under no circumstances do it again.
C) Call all the teachers into a meeting to discuss a pointless solution to the problem.
D) Severely punish him and make sure that he understands that if he touches another child he will be even more severely punished.

Well according to the UN we do A; B and C because obviously the ruffian will see that the diplomacy that has completely failed on him thus far is actually the solution. When are this group of sponges going to finally disband so that we can see some proper consequence for a change. North Korea have taught Iran a valuable lesson. The Western World's bark is far greater than its miniscule bite. Expect Iran to be testing nukes in the near future.

Speaking of that test in North Korea, while the rest of the world were trying to determine the severity of this test, tragedy occurred. The North Korean government, careful to place the nuke underground, overlooked one small thing, they tested it directly under someone's house. The poor woman was sitting in her bedroom when she heard a faint rumble, realizing something wasn't right, she ran as fast as she could to escape the blast zone, with luck on her side, she barely escaped.

Rustee Rants has the only documented photograph of this incident:

And there you have it folks, the debut of "Where's Walid"

Hope you enjoyed the read, what will the aftermath of the test be? Where will Walid appear next? Stay tuned for more of Rustee Rants.

The Propaganda War

2006-08-09T15:27:00.000+03:00

Hello my Rusteefarians, I hope everyone is doing well. So as you all know, Israel is still engaged in a bitter combat with Hizbulistan. Our Prime Minister is just the moron I thought he was and since I predicted shit to drastically hit the fan, I would like to say to all of you: I told you so!

So the latest news that's worth reporting is the use of the media by the Lebs and the fact that they are using disproportionate propaganda to win the war in every muslim and anti-semite's head.

The body counts from every operation by Israel in Lebanon is generally doubled. Every operation, from here on known as massacre, is another excuse for hizbula to bring out their spare dead children and go back and forth, throwing them into building remains and then taking them dramatically to the ambulance. Lather, rinse, repeat.

They really upped the ante this week however, we have an arab photographer who for the sake of true and accurate reporting, has been using photoshop to edit photos to give a more accurate depiction of what's going. Of course AP and Reuters grabbed the photos as quickly as they could, didn't bother to notice what a 5 year old would have, and published the photos much to our chagrin. And I'm honestly supposed to believe that AP and Reuters, the two biggest news agencies in the world, don't have a photo validation team? I call BULLSHIT!

Then we have academy award nominated Prime Minister Siniora, who decided to cry about his countries destruction on 2 occasions whilst addressing some bunch of idiots who were stupid enough to listen. Can you imagine if Winston Churchill started crying during WW2 or if Priam lay on the floor kicking his feet during the invasion of Troy. It's outrageous and all too funny at the same time.

But the truth of the matter is, Siniora is not the idiot, the people who believe his crap and his crocodile tears are. They are the kind of people who watch the introductory video on the flight - as to how to buckle your seat belt - every time!

The greatest unnoticed gem was the body count in Ghassaniyeh. The initial reported death toll was 40 people. Yes and the world went mad, because you don't just kill 40 people for no reason. Even if that no reason is actually because they are harboring terrorists and their missiles in their houses but lets not argue over irrelevant semantics. What was not really paid attention to, was the fact that Siniora just happened to mention, in passing comment between outburst of crying, that the death toll was actually only 1 death at the time and that 40 was reported because it seemed a good idea at the time.

Now 3 days later, and the world press has yet to clean up this little oopsie. When asked for comment, Olmert said: "This propaganda war that we are no doubt winning, is a great platform to launch a disengagement from the West Bank and Tel Aviv and Jerusalem."

So the issue really isn't how we are winning the war (and believe me, we are), the issue is that the world is taking a collective dump on us based on the inaccurate media reports they are receiving. How is Israel attempting to fix this situation? Well when you find out please drop me an email because somebody in the Government is bloody clueless. Wait... Everyone in the government is bloody clueless.

I'd like to end off today with what I hope is to become a regular part of Rustee Rants. I'm sure many of you have seen this picture:

This picture is apparently supposed to be of some women who lost her house in a bombing in Beirut July 22nd. The interesting thing is, she happened to appear mourning her house's destruction a few weeks later on the 5th of August:

Unluckiest woman in whole of Lebanon? I don't think so. Of course AP and Reuters have started waking up to the reality that most of what they are hearing from the Lebanese side is absolute rubbish and so have removed the photos and fired the multiple-offender photographer.

Too little too late, but never too late to take the piss. So allow me to introduce you to my latest feature on Rustee Rants: Where's Walid? What is Where's Walid? Well you'll just have to come back soon to find out.

Goodbye Blue Sky

2006-07-26T17:00:00.000+03:00

Wow its been a while hasn't it. Suffice to say I don't have a lot of time to write as much as I used to and there is just so much I've wanted to write about that I haven't had a chance.

The biggest news around here, in case you've been living in a hole in the ground, is the war between Israel and hizbulla. Just to recap the story so far, us Israelis were offending everyone by minding our own business as per usual when suddenly palestinian militants decide to kill and kidnap our soldiers.

Of course we went in and tried to get our soldier back and as of yet we have been unsuccessful. The Lebanese pigs hizbulla decided to jump on the bandwagon and kill and kidnap soldiers and started firing katyusha rockets into northern Israel.

Here we are now 2 weeks later with rockets raining down every day and the biggest battle we've had to fight since 1982. The media as per usual has been extremely biased and anti-Israel, specifically BBC, running 15 minute news reports on the destruction in Lebanon and the deaths of innocent civilians, whilst briefly happening to mention, on passing comment, that "Oh yes, the Jews are dying too..."

Of course as per usual the militants remain defiant. Well gee that's a big surprise. Considering they are the biggest propaganda machine on the planet and people are still stupid enough to believe them. I have friends at the Lebanese border who seem to tell me otherwise.

We Israelis, for the most part, are sticking together, everyone is personally affected by this some way or another. I know someone who's son died defending our country and may he rest in peace. My cousins have had to evacuate their home in Carmiel due to the rocket barrages.

However as always, you have your left wing morons who constantly apologise to the whole world for us Jews even existing. These cretins have been protesting the war that us awful Israelis apparently started and are begging for negotiations. Well I have a solution lefties, we can drop you off in Bint Jbeil and you can negotiate with hizbulla.

If I had things my way, every left-winger would be removed from this country. There is nothing worse than a person who hates his own people and would rather see his own people die than the enemy. Of course left wings always know what's wrong, but when have they ever provided a feasible solution to the problem. Wait a second, remember when Ehud Barak almost gave away half the country? Well who walked away from those negotiations? Yes it was Arafat.

Which brings me to another point, hizbulla was founded, or so they claim, to push the Israeli occupation out of Lebanon, well last time I checked, we withdrew years ago! Of course the truth is, Arab-muslims are nothing but warmongering Jew hating pieces of shit who have no desire to live with us in peace. Its a common mis-translation, what they want is to live with us in pieces!

Kahane was right, and contrary to what many people believe, he was a righteous man who only wanted peace for both sides but knew that Arabs and Jews could never coexist together. I read an article by an Arab female on Ynet yesterday, in this article she discussed how Gaza was not really free and was actually more of an open air prison. Well I wonder why... Perhaps its has something to do with the fact that your people will never be happy until we are all dead. Perhaps its due to the fact that we left you our infrastructure and you destroyed it!

How many greenhouses and farms did you burn and defile. We turned Gaza into an Oasis and in less than a year in your hands, it was a desert again. This is obviously our fault. We gave you 33% of what you wanted and how much peace did you give us in return? Do you honestly believe that peace works when one side gives 100% and the other side decides to do as they feel? Why should we let you into Israel? Why should we wait behind you in the hospital? Don't you have your own hospitals?

Regardless of what is reported by the biased media, the facts are there. We live in a country about the size of New Jersey. The Arab states are the size of United States, Central American and Mexico combined. So how much space could we possibly be occupying if our entire country is one six-hundred-and-fiftieth of their own?

The war against the Zionist entity is not one of land dispute, its a religious war fueled by hatred and brainwashing. And the ultimate question I have to ask is WHAT IS A PALESTINIAN? Was there such a thing as a palestinian pre-20th century? And if all of them are refugees, where are they from? The answer is Jordan, these so called palestinians or Jordanian refugees. Of course there is more than enough open land across the Arabian gulf for these so called people to live in peace with their Arab brothers but the fact is nobody wants them!

Yesterday for me however was the greatest accomplishment of this war so far. We bombed a UNIFIL Base. Whether by accident or deliberate, there is no doubt in my mind that it was bloody brilliant. The United Nothings and Kofi Annan who have used their organization as nothing more than a proxy with which to spy, finally got what was coming to them.

If UN Resolution 1559 - which called upon Lebanon to establish full control over all of its land, for Syria to stop interfering in Lebanon and for ALL Lebanese militias, including hizbulla, to disband - had been kept, administered and adhered to by UNIFIL whose job it was to do such, maybe none of this would have been necessary.

All I have ever seen the UN do in the region is drive around in fancy Mercedes Benzes and SUVs in Herzilya Pituach. I am glad that the UN got hit, they are nothing but a bunch of interfering no good pieces of crap who have done nothing to improve any situation anywhere in the world.

The solution is to fight fire with fire. Nasrallah can preach all he wants, we know he is hiding. Just like Saddam did in his hole in the ground. Lebanon and the rest of the world can bitch all they want about Israel not exercising restraint. Better the devil you know guys because if I had a say in how this country was defended, gaza would be a parking lot and Lebanon, Syria and Iran would be past tense.

For the Israelis out their who stand by their country and their soldiers, united we have strength and God bless our soldiers and the people up north who have sacrificed so much for our freedom. Together we will stand strong and overcome this adversity as we have before.

אל תירא מפחד פתאם, ומשאת רשעים כי תבא. עצו עצה ותפר, דברו דבר ולא יקום, כי עמנו אל .ועד זקנה אני הוא, ועד שיבה אני אסבל, אני עשיתי ואני אשא, ואני אסבל ואמלט

"Do not fear sudden terror, or the holocaust of the wicked when it comes. Plan a conspiracy and it will be annulled; speak your piece and it shall not stand, for Hashem is with us. Even till your seniority, I remain unchanged; and even till your ripe old age, I shall endure. I created you and shall bear you; I shall endure and rescue."

World Cup whims

2006-05-28T22:16:00.000+03:00

Wow its been a while! Almost a month since my last post but here I am again. Working night shifts can mess up your daily routine. So its almost June, the summer is here and in just about 2 weeks one of the greatest sports festivals in the world begins and the whole world will be eagerly watching... If they can afford it.

Now I'm not sure how it works everywhere else on the planet but the Israeli broadcasters have decided to turn the Soccer World Cup into a money making fest at the expense of the consumer.

Yes every month we pay for premier sports channels in order to receive the licenses to broadcast the great sporting events. Well technically that's what we should be paying for, what we are paying for is the ability to pay for the event when it actually arrives.

Formula 1 is the most watched sport on the planet, every second weekend 1.5 billion people tune in to watch the creme de la creme of motor racing. Israeli broadcasters put the Formula 1 on whenever it doesn't interrupt their broadcasting of the Israeli skiing championships or the U.S. wood chopping league.

We have to pay weekly to watch the Premier League and now the biggest disgrace of all, we will have to pay an outrageous 400+ shekels to watch the World Cup.

My question is this: What are the cable and satellite tv companies doing with the money we pay them every month to buy these licenses?

I can understand them charging people who don't buy the sports channels year round. But I do and I sure as hell don't pay to be able to switch to channel 57 and say "Oh wow, look its channel 57 and they are showing the July tissue paper tearing championships!"

I think it is an absolute disgrace and nothing more than a money making scheme which I have decided to boycott. I have decided I will not give the Israeli broadcasters once cent of my money. I have signed up online to receive the World Cup for a quarter of the price and I will be canceling my subscription to the sports channels.

Obviously I am paying for wasted space considering the sports coverage on our television is appalling, the licenses I pay for, I have to pay for again and at the end of the day, I am being bullied into to putting extra money down when I and nobody else wants to.

So lets send a message to Hot! and Yes. Find an alternative, watch the soccer in a bar, or online or not at all. Lets teach them that the consumer IS always right and if we are going to pay for a service, we damn well expect them to provide it.

I am perfectly happy to watch my world cup favorites battle it out on my PC. I am personally rooting for the United States, Portugal and Spain as runners up to the best of the best Brazil. Its pretty much the first world cup I will be able to watch in its entirety and I can't wait for the first to blow and the world's greatest sporting festival to begin.

Yom Hazikaron to Yom Ha'atzmaut.

2006-05-03T14:38:00.000+03:00

Every year on the 5th day of the Jewish month Iyar, the people of Israel celebrate their independence. Yom HaAtzmaut is an amazing and beautiful experience to behold. All of the problems our country faces every day, the terrorism, the middle east peace process and the mundane setbacks of normal life are all put on hold for one wonderful night where the entire country comes together to celebrate the fact that, through all the wars and adversity, all the anti-semitism and every other obstacle that is determined to destroy us, WE ARE STILL HERE! And boy do we celebrate in style.

However, even though we dedicate the entire 5th of Iyar to celebrating our independence, the 4th of Iyar is dedicated to the remembrance of our brave soldiers who fell in battle and cowardly attacks. On Yom HaZikaron, we light a memorial candle and the central town air raid sirens cry out across the whole country as we all remember our beloved people who fell in the name of our beautiful country. Every year when that horn cries out, I find myself imagining the scenes of war and those final moments of those men's young lives. I see guns firing, mortars dropping and the men who we honour, fall.

I am always left with a feeling of terrible sorrow, followed by a feeling of terrible anger. Why did these men have to die? And the answer always comes the following night. These men did not die in vain, they died to give us the freedom to go out and celebrate our country. They died so that our children could grow up as Jews, safe and away from harm. They died so that never again would we ever let the world bring upon us another holocaust. The heroes of our nation are honoured on Yom HaZikaron, and celebrated on Yom HaAtzmaut.

We drink, we have concerts, we laugh, we sing and we show everybody that we are alive and that we are not going anywhere! Last night, a group of about 10 of us all went off to the central park in Raanana. We drank... Lots! And then off we went to the amphitheatre where established musicians played a concert for free in honour of this glorious day. It is an experience you can never have enough of, its something that no matter how many times you see it, its always amazing. Fireworks lighting up the sky, everybody putting their political and religious opinions aside just to be one great nation for one night.

And when we are all together, across the whole of Israel, celebrating our independence and honouring the brave soldiers and innocent civilians who died for us to have this freedom, there is no mightier nation in the world!

The Wrap on Rap

2006-04-25T16:13:00.000+03:00

Before I start this post, I would just like to send my condolences to all innocent victims of Rap artist shoot outs. Not the rappers themselves but the people who die and their families who are left behind when one of these rappers decides to bring his so called musical ability to life.

This post will be controversial, only because it is the blatant truth. If you are offended, I'm happy that I opened your naive eyes for just a couple of seconds before you closed the window.

On April 11th, outside a club in Detroit, 2 men were killed, another man's life ruined and a business put into jeopardy. Proof, a rapper, decided to that during a heated exchange with a patron of the club, he would pistol-whip and shoot somebody. He of course was a rapper, so he figured he could do whatever he wanted and got a bullet in the head for his troubles. Well done Deshaun, you got what was coming to you.

The man who shot our hero Proof, was not only a bouncer at the club, but also the victim's cousin. He is now facing up to 9 years in jail because of Proof, the rap industry and every single one of you who listens to and buys rap music. Yes it is once again the consumer's fault and I will explain why, but first off, as usual, lets go off on a tangent.

Rap needs rappers to die in order to survive. In fact Rap Moguls bank on rappers dying every single year in order for them to rake in money. Hell Tupac and Biggie Smalls have been dead for years and other rappers still gravedig every year to bring up some more songs and "collaborations" in order to put some more money in their pocket. As Sean Combs/Puff Daddy/ P. Diddy/Old Biddy put it, it really is "All about the benjamins baby."

And what do we really expect? Of course these criminals are going to get killed. They are a bunch of thugs who take pride in singing about drugs, stealing, assault, pimping, killing and dissing each other. I'm sure if Michael Jackson started singing about child molestation you would all boycott him. These people are not singing figuratively. They are relating their lives in music. They are criminals and by buying their music you justify their trade. Sooner or later one of them is going to lose the fight and so they wont be able to sing about it. Rap is survival of the fittest in a breed that would be doomed to eliminate itself if it wasn't for the consumer who ensures their criminal survival.

They feel above the law because they can just thug it out and shoot anybody who gets in their way and by getting in their way I mean looking at them wrong. And they are above the law because the consumer puts them above the law.

Rapper Shyne is allowed to create an album in jail and be signed to a label, we need to stop and take a look at the disgraceful injustice that is being served to the people. How can a criminal who is incarcerated be allowed the right of fair enterprise? Why does he get this special treatment? The funny thing is, after apologizing to the victims of the shooting he was involved in he stated he didn't do anything intentional and he was "Scared for my life", his album included lyrics which ranged from drugs and bitches to killing people and busting guns.

Sounds like the kind of man who was only shooting innocent people out of self defense to me. But that's not even the worst of it. The sad thing is, if our friend Deshaun hadn't been shot in the head, his hotshot lawyers would have gotten him acquitted of all charges. And he'll probably clear his name now but at least justice has been served and Proof got what he deserved.

We the consumers can stop this cancer of rap and hip-hop from infiltrating our youth's minds and prevent an escalation in violence by simply boycotting the Rap Industry. How many more cars does P. Diddy need? Do all of them really need so much ice round their necks? Do we really have to listen to how many hoes some rapper has in his area codes, or whether or not Obie Trice will find a girl with teeth?

Rap has brought nothing but violence, misogyny and increased crime. It glorifies drug peddling, racial hatred, assault, murder, theft and womanising. Have there ever been any positives to come out of rap? Maybe a lot of HIV positives but I don't remember the last time any rapper organized a live 8 concert, they were all too busy buying their bling-bling and shooting each other and everyone else.

Stop buying their music and stop defending their cause. Just because they are celebrities does not mean they should be above the law. Just ask the families of Keith Bender, Mario Etheridge and the many others whose lives have been destroyed by this evil enterprise. OR alternatively you can wait for a new Tupac Shakur album in which he may or may not mention his desire for peace but inability to stop himself from popping a cap in some ****** ass.

The Dark Side of the Waters

2006-04-19T15:10:00.000+03:00

So the lunatic is on the grass, the Greener side that is. Good old Roger Waters who is to perform in Israel this June has decided to change the location of his concert from the Yarkon Park, to a place where "Jews and Arabs co-exist."

This decision was made after heavy criticism by those imaginary people known as the Palestinians. "The lunatic is in my head; There’s someone in my head but it’s not me." Our Roger then decided to speak to spiritual leaders(read: Inciters of violence) and palestinian activists(read: terrorists) and came up with the excuse that the move was in order to support "solidarity with Israeli and Palestinian 'voices of reason' that are pursuing a nonviolent path to peace."

Really Rog? Funny how I never heard anything about you contacting our side. And we always thought "Brain Damage" was dedicated to Syd. Tell me Roger, when you guys were performing in the 60's and 70's where were the "palestinians"? Oh wait a minute they didn't exist. Israel however, was listening to and buying your music. All whilst having wars with our "peaceful" neighbours who were trying to obliterate us. I'm sure that suicide bombing on Monday really showed you how much the palestinians and their regime want to coexist with us.

Let me just put it to you this way. I am not going to be attending your concert and even if I had bought a ticket, I would be going to get a refund right away. I will not support your cowardice and I implore that other Israelis boycott this concert too.

As far as the palestinians are concerned let me quote Fahdi Riqueshi of Baltimore, Maryland: "No Palestinian should spend any money to see this promoter of a decadent, drug-filled Western lifestyle. Enough of these infidels trying to fill the heads of our children with this filth."

And in the issue of fairness, I will do what you didn't do and present the Dark Side of this argument. If we can hear from a pro-palestinian voice lets hear from a pro-israel voice. Brad L had this to say about the whole situation: "I am a Pink Floyd fan and a huge Roger Waters fan. I have seen him perform in every concert in San Francisco since the 70`s. I was ecstatic when I read he was performing in Tel Aviv. I had a feeling he would opt out and he did. He is as naive as most of Britain. He is a pacifist and a fool. I guarantee you he will cancel his whole trip. I see it coming. If you know anything about him, he is anti-Israel and has not been a great fan of the Jews. I loved his music but I refuse to ever attend a concert with him again. Any rock start who refuses to play in Israel as he has for many years should be boycotted. He isn`t doing this for Israel. He is doing it for Hamas and the PA who he feels are mistreated by Israel. Wake up Israelis....."

Seems like you have support on both sides now. Our promoters brought you in, our people paid money to see you, we supported you through your days with Pink Floyd and your solo career, we marevelled at the fact that you still had "It" at Live 8 but the palestinians are obviously more important than we are so why don't you go perform in Gaza and Jenin and then get the hell out because we don't need you to come solve our political conflicts. Why don't you tear down your wall of ignorance and see the truth?

"And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear
And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon"

Terrorists and their Apologists

2006-04-18T15:46:00.000+03:00

Today's topic is more serious than my normal ranting and raving about obscure things. It involves the murder of 9 innocent people and the permanent damage, be it physical or psychological, of over 70 people excluding their families.

Yesterday afternoon outside a falafel shop in Tel Aviv, a suicide bomber decided to detonate itself, destroying the lives of many people around it in the process. This creature, this waste of oxygen was, according to Hamas, "defending itself!" Tired of all those terrible Israelis trying to go about their daily lives, this turd decided that it was going to die a martyr for whatever pathetic reason its leaders chose this week.

Now I know a lot of people reading this are going to find it controversial, well if you don't want to carry on reading that's your own choice, you can love me or hate me, hell you can even Jew and sue me while you're at it. I'm going to say what many other people don't have the balls to say due to the cancer of this world known as "Political Correctness"

When a "democratically elected" government, which also happens to be a terrorist organization, defends a terrorist attack such as this, you would think that the international community and their worthless opinion would be one of outrage. You would think that the Israeli government would retaliate for such a heinous crime, that the deaths of these people would be avenged. That would be a perfect world. Unfortunately that reality does not exist for many reasons.

First off, congratulations to the Israeli public for voting in Kadima and Olmert, you are more responsible for yesterday's attack than anybody else. You were given a choice and you chose wrong. Expect more attacks like this and I hope your conscious eats you alive for making that decision. Now we all will face the consequences.

Secondly, the Israeli Government needs to understand that 9 Israeli deaths are not equal to a metal workshop and a couple of revoked licenses. WAKE UP! How many more need to be murdered before the excuses and the bullshit stops. Abbas condemned the attacks, yeah right; I can also talk out of my ass. Arafat used to condemn attacks too. They want us dead, they've stated it countless times and Israel and the United Nothings just let them carry on talking crap without any consequence for their actions. Do you really think either of them gives a shit about us Zionists?

Which brings me to another point, Zionism is dead, and it died on May 14, 1948. It died again on January 7, 1950 then again on June 11 1967, August 7 1970 and then finally one last time on October 26 1973. You may ask why I say Zionism is dead, well the answer is quite simple, Zionism refers to the ideal of creating a Jewish land in the area known as Palestine. Well that's been done therefore rendering Zionism obsolete. So for all you ignorant morons out there who hate Zionism and liken it to Apartheid, please, please, please, stick your heads back in your asses and don't come out again.

So what we have is a bunch of terrorists running a regime that's only objective is to obliterate a people and take over their 28000 square kilometer piece of land. No Jewish festival goes by without the Palestinian Terrorists trying to kill more of us and the ironic thing is, the bomb was detonated outside a falafel shop and falafel is not even Kosher for Pesach. So are they really trying to kill practicing Jews and everything Judaism stands for or are they just blood thirsty pieces of crap? I will go with the latter on that one.

Funny how women in the region may not live with equal honor to men in their culture but when it comes to dying in honor the discrimination factor disappears. Only pieces of shit such as these will bribe a retarded child with money and candy if he goes to push the button on his belt next to the soldiers. This is the situation we are dealing with here and once again, nobody is to blame more than the Israeli people and their government.

The U.S. loves telling us to exercise restraint. Ha Ha. Where was the restraint for 9/11? What restraint was exercised going into Iraq? Now don't get me wrong, I totally support both campaigns but this is not "do as I say, not as I do!" If

America

has the right to defend itself, so do we! But of course we won't. Every day that maniac Ahmedinejad declares war on Israel and every day we take it. They push and push and push and we never push back, that's because none of the people running this country had family members die in yesterdays attack. They all sat safe in the Knesset with some idiot playing a guitar whilst images of a bomb struck Tel Aviv appeared on the screen. Wow I can cry crocodile tears too, well done guys.

I hope the next suicide bomb that goes off involves one of their children, instead of one of ours because they have obviously shown us via their actions that they couldn't care less whether the people died or not. I have an idea, if a terrorist blows himself up and kills Israelis, flatten his entire village, if we're getting blamed for oppressing the Palestinians, we may as well bloody do it and do it in style! When will Israel wake up and realize that this situation needs to be dealt with properly instead of knocking down houses and giving land to these turds.

And as for the rest of the world, those of you who are giving funds to the Terrorist regime of the Palestinians, I hope to see a suicide bomb in your town; I want your children, your family, and your friends to know what it feels like. Oh wait, you already know what it feels like New York and London, Madrid and Bali and you guys didn't even draw a cartoon! Its a shame that you all forget so easily, but not to fear, you can blame Israel for everything, it is of course our fault what with us wanting to live in peace and all, we are truly so sorry for the inconvenience.

So I have an idea for all of you anti-Semitic and anti-Israel scumbags. Boycott us, please go ahead and boycott every thing we have ever done, do not go to movies that involve Jews whether it is in the form of actors, producers, directors or screenwriters. Don't use our science, our medicine, our military technology, our bankers, our stockbrokers, our doctors. Remove all Jews from history and maybe we will all go away.

170 Nobel Prize winners gone, isn't that great? The Polio vaccine doesn't exist, nor does Novocain and local anesthesia. Stop using the Heimlich maneuver because we all know Heimlich was a crooked nosed Jew who was just trying to pick pocket a poor innocent man. What about all Jews and Israelis in Hollywood? Well we may as well throw out all those Steven Spielberg movies. What about economics, we'll line up David Ricardo, Karl Marx and a few others and have them shot, it won't hurt anybody really.

Get the picture? We are here, we are here to stay and all the hating and terrorism in the world will only make us stronger, so do us all a favor and quit while you're ahead, lest we use your children's blood in our Matzah for Pesach next year.

DVD Region Codes and the Entertainment Industry

2006-04-01T14:29:00.000+03:00

Good afternoon friends. Today's subject is something that has been on my mind for a long time. However after the culmination of recent events, I feel it is my duty to reveal the truth for all to see.

I went back to the mall a few days ago to buy a DVD player. I went to the store, inspected two or three machines, chose the one I thought was best and made my way home. Now our television in the lounge was made by a retard. Mr Toshiba did his sister a favour by letting her "special" son build a television set and my family landed up receiving this one of a kind TV. So after hours of figuring out how to connect the DVD player to the TV without disconnecting the cable and shutting down the hospital's main generator, we got this DVD player up and running.

So far so good, I put in one DVD, it works, I put in an audio CD, it works, Memory card slot working perfectly. That is until I put in a DVD with region 1, I got this message:

What the hell is that? For all the bitching the MPAA, the RIAA and the film studios and music labels do about piracy and stealing, they sure do a lot to piss the consumer off. I bought a DVD player, legally, I bought a DVD, legally, so why in the hell can I not watch any DVD in any DVD player?!? Why sell the DVD if the country does not generally use that region? Israel is Region 2, why do they sell Region 1 DVDs? The answer is simple my friends, the Entertainment Moguls, are the greediest sacks of crap on the entire planet. You see they want to control you, your every move and they don't want you to have the choice.

Even if there was a logical reason as to why they do this - which I'm sure one of their hoity-toity lawyers can provide us - they should not be selling different region DVDs in a country that doesnt accept that region. Oh... but wait a minute, I'm sure you can buy a DVD player thats three times the price of a regular one, that the gracious film companies have allowed to play all regions.

I recently bought a DVD from one of my favourite bands(check them out: www.marillion.com) and much to my excitement, the DVD was region free. But how can this be? Well Marillion can actually be described as human beings, they want their fans to enjoy their performances in ever region in the world. I can watch it in Australia, South Africa, Antarctica and even here in Israel.

So all you big boys in the entertainment industry can learn a few things. First off, what Marillion makes is music, that shit that Beyonce spurts out of her mouth is not music, its noise. On top of that, Marillion actually writes their own music, no need to sample other people's work when you have a little musical instrument called talent! Second of all, Marillion like their fans, they want their fans to like them and they know that loyal fans will always be there for them hence, they don't piss their fans off.

I know it might be difficult for the guys at Sony, 20th Century Fox and EMI to grasp this but the consumer needs to make a stand. Somehow we need to get a message out to these retards that they don't dictate the industry, we do. Allow me to paraphrase from an excellent movie I just saw called "V for Vendetta": People should not be afraid of the entertainment industry, the entertainment industry should be afraid of the people, we are the ones who choose whether or not they survive. With all the music I own and all the DVDs I own, I could easily live one year without them, so could most of you, I guarantee you however that a one year boycott of the Entertainment Industry would cripple them... Permanently!

Support smaller musicians and independent film makers, support musicians with their own music label, if the others care about the art and the fans more than the money, they will all soon follow suite.

On the next episode of Rustee Rants, The Bus Conspiracy and Mosquitos

Oh the joys of boredom

2006-03-23T22:47:00.000+02:00

This entry is being written to boredom! Welcome ladies and gentlemen with nothing better to do than read my blog. Its Thursday night and I'm sitting at home bored out of my skull,

Everyone is in the army or has better things to do with their lives such as sleep and mope, instead of going out and actually developing a pulse. Well someone is at a wedding but apart from that someone(you know who you are), the rest of Raanana is dead.

Okay the guys in the army have no choice, they are sacrificing their time to defend our borders so we can vote in another useless politician who isn't going to do one thing he promises to. But the people who are at home and have nothing to do tomorrow... What gives? This is the time in your life where you have the opportunity to go out and party, have fun, enjoy breathing every couple of seconds(you don't want to overdo it). I know its hard for some people to live with such excitement but I need my entertainment damn it!

The weekend is something I actually used to look forward to, these days I dread it. I can make the excuse of playing games and watching movies during the week. When it comes to having to sit at home on the weekend I feel absolutely cheated. Even if that piece of tin in my parking space, that used to be a car, was working, I'd still have nothing to do. Hell I hate clubbing but I'd even do that!

What has happened to our generation? Our parents, who in their age have become so toned down and responsible, used to go out and have crazy times and we emulate them, not as they were back then, but as they are today. Its terrible, in twenty years time I want reminisce about going to parties and bars and having crazy nights. At the rate I'm going its going to be something along the lines of "I remember when I watched "Grease" on Thursday night once many years ago."

I can't even think of anything to write about because I feel like I'd just be forcing it out and it would come across as completely unnatural. Even my sense of humour decided to go out for the night and leave me at home by myself. Tomorrow night had better be a big bloody improvement because if its not, I think I'm going to start cutting of fingers and seeing how long I can withstand the pain before I pass out. So if anybody is willing to donate their fingers to my anti-boredom campaign, sign up here. You honestly didn't think I'd cut my own fingers of did you?

So I'm going to surf the web for thousands of tidbits of uselessness that will entertain me for about 15 seconds a click. If you are like me and bored out of your mind at home when you feel you should be going out partying, don't worry, you now know that you are not alone.

Wait a second... The Hot/Cold Shower signal is flying high in the sky, the citizens need me! I'm going to jump into the Hot/Cold Showermobile and go fight the ne'er-do-wells. Until I return avid readers I bid you adieu

Things that go BUMP at 07:27 in the morning

2006-03-19T18:38:00.000+02:00

This entry is being written to Selling England by the Pound. As some people may have noticed, most of what I have written here is about things that annoy the hell out of me. Well guess what today's subject is about. Buckle your seatbelts, here we go...

Normal people wake up at between 6 and 7 every morning to get on with their dismal lives which may or may not include, work, school, banking and serving time. I however am not a normal person so when I get a phone call at 07:27 AM I tend to get rather pissed off.

This morning after going to bed at around 03:30 I was horrified to be awoken from an interesting dream about god knows what. Now a little background story on why I was horrified. Last Friday a friend of mine decided to make some ridiculous statement about B. B. King and blues music, he even added sound effects. Much to my amusement I commanded him to repeat his sense whilst I recorded it on my snazzy cellular phone and I have been using this as my ringtone ever since. When you're out at night and with a bunch of people and the phone rings, its bloody brilliant. Seven in the morning - completely different story.

So as I was saying, here I am having a wonderful dream when suddenly I am woken by "Hachi Pashut BOW POW!!!" resonating through every part of my body. Looking at the time in disbelief, I noticed that the caller was an long time client of mine from back in the old days when I used to pretend to run a computer fixing business.

Now as I'm sure all of you know, the nokia cellular phone comes with a wonderful option to silence the phone midring. Great feature really - when it works. There I am franticly trying not to wake up completely and I'm pushing the silence button over and over and its laughing at me. I could tell by the look on its screen as it flashed that name over and over it was thinking to itself: "This is for all the times you've thrown me at walls and onto patches of grass you bastard, now I, with the help of ***** ******, am going to wake you up!"

Over the course of the last ten years, cellular phones have become extremely smart, from predictive text to conference calls. From video and music to Bluetooth and internet. My cellular phone however must be the smartest of all because it collaborates. It had the perfect plan, once my client had disconnected the call and I thought everything was finally back to normal, I was shocked to find that my cellular phone had organized for every 18-wheeler truck in the country to drive down our street. This is as quiet as a philharmonic orchestra playing Beethoven's 5th whilst overdosing on heroine.

Next came the leaf blowers. These men have the most pointless job on the planet. There main objective is to annoy the crap out of me, then they blow leaves from one side of the parking lot to the other. The next day they come back and blow all the leaves back again. They do this 5 times a week!!! Blowing leaves back and forth for eternity. So they decide they're going to test their leaf blowing skills extra early and by that stage I'm beating my head against large object wishing that they were sharper. All this time my phone was lying on my bed quite proud of itself and what it had managed to achieve.

Eventually I managed to get back to sleep and decided to sleep in extra all because I feel the entire event was one done out of sheer spite from all parties involved. So if they try to wake me up early, I'll just sleep in late and the phone, well lets just say its been silenced. But I know one day, when I'm not paying attention, it will unleash an even greater plan that may even lead to my ultimate destruction. Until that day I sleep and my cellphone waits for its finest hour.

How to waste 110 minutes of your life. Or, "Get him. The man move!"

2006-03-15T23:16:00.001+02:00

Tonight I went to a friend's house to watch a movie. I will never ever forgive myself for making this decision. Of course I'm talking about visiting my friends. Okay I'm just kidding... Really. My friend Ren is going into the army tomorrow, so a bunch of us went to visit her to say goodbye until we see her again(probably this weekend).

So we decided to sit down and watch a movie and what movie did we settle for? Into the Blue. Now the tagline for this movie is "Hold your breathe!" I wish I had. I wish I had held my breathe until I died instead of watching this garbage.

The movie starts off 45 minutes after the opening credits. Up until that point all we see is Jessica Alba in a bikini and the lesser paid actress in a smaller bikini, legs spread wide for the whole world to see the digestive process. At first I thought that the constant view of ass was just eye candy, but then I realized something, the director was giving us subtle hints that this movie reeked of shit.

With such wise cracks as "Tiger Sharks, you know the furry one's with stripes" to the lack of a single iota of research into diving, this movie really made me want to rip my eyes out instead of having to see it. And we were given a few opportunities to stop, but its like witnessing a horrifying accident, something inside you just makes you carry on watching.

The basic plot is as follows, 2 couples go out on a boat to do some snorkeling, cool dude A drops his watch and upon trying to retrieve it, finds a legendary shipwreck. He also finds a whole bunch of cocaine but that's of no relevance because there is never actually an antagonist to make that a plot point.

Their diving skills are amazing, they can make their dives down to around 8 meters without the use of weightbelts. Only sometimes for visual effect do the weightbelts actually appear. Second of all, they are immune to the bends. Normal divers take their time to surface, this bunch shoot right up, their bubbles trailing far behind them and because they are so damn beautiful, nothing happens to them.

They also snorkel into caves, because we know how safe this is, considering most caves underwater have little surfacing areas below sea-level where you can catch your breath. On top of this, they dive in shark infested waters and take air directly from the tank without worrying about things such as the pressure in the tank, without a regulator attached, being 3000 psi. When you are beautiful your lungs can take it.

Ultimately, when the antagonists do come along, the twist is about as fierce as a carousel in a children's fair. Oh and did I forgot to mention that one of our key players is actually a lawyer. He must be an Australopithecus lawyer because he has as much brains as a garden chair. This lawyer incidentally is staying in the beautiful Bahamas resort because one of his criminal clients owes him a favour. On top of that, he is the one who is most eager to retrieve all the cocaine and sell it. And dude A is no better, he cannot even formulate a proper sentence without sounding like he forgot to swallow the marshmallows he ate earlier

I won't reveal the exhilarating ending but I am amazed at how one of the sharks managed to bite a clean cut out of cheaper girl's leg. I mean sharks these days have straight rows of teeth, gone are the days of shredded flesh and jagged bites, this was like a samurai kitana shark.

My biggest question throughout this movie was this: In most fields of work, people strive for success, to be the best they can be, authors want to win the Pulitzer, scientists, the noble prize. I'm assuming that most directors of films would like to win oscars. So with that in mind, when the director of this film sat down at the board meeting with the other production staff and screenwriter, what exactly was their objective? Did they honestly believe they stood a chance? Did these guys really all congratulate each other for a job well done?

I honestly think I would have been more entertained by a story I made up myself. The movie would be called "Upside-down and nowhere to go." The movie would star Jessica Alba in a bikini and a turtle. The movie would start with Jessica lying on the beach catching a tan. A turtle would arrive on shore and accidentally get itself flipped onto its back, the next 90 minutes would be focus on this turtle trying to flip back onto its stomach so that it can get on with its life. Every ten minutes or so the camera pans out and we see Jessica rubbing oil on her body, soaking up that sun; at the end, just as the turtle is about to flip onto its stomach and Jessica is about to take of her bikini top, a frog riding a meteor smashes into the earth and the movie ends.

Now that would be a good movie! Sex appeal? Got it! A dramatic struggle? Got it! A never-saw-it-coming twist at the end of the movie? Of course. Okay so it doesn't have dialogue but then again neither did into the blue, random lines such as "Get him. The man move!" do not count in my books as dialogue.

So if anyone reading this is planning to see this terrible movie, don't! You can get plenty of pictures of Jessica Alba online wearing things she has never put on in her entire life. Don't waste 110 minutes like I did, its not worth, not for all the Jessica Alba in the world

Shopping Malls and ATM's

2006-03-12T13:26:00.000+02:00

Good Afternoon friends. Shopping malls are interesting places at the best of times. In fact I have come to the conclusion that although shopping malls clearly show how man has progressed through the ages, many people at shopping malls stopped progressing at the Australopithecus stage of our evolution.

The first occurrence in my voyage to the mall last night was at the ATM. Now the ATM was designed in order to obtain cash from your bank account without having to go to the bank. Situated in convenient places, ATM's are quite simple. A regular number pad with an accept or cancel button and on the screen several selection buttons in order to make your choice. Not Nintendo simple, but simple enough. No engineering degree required, just a brain larger than a walnut.

unfortunately our Australopithecus Mallratus female doesn't seem to posses such a large brain and stands for hours in front of the ATM trying to figure out exactly how to use it. After many attempts she finally manages to jam her ATM card into the machine. Next she is asked to confirm that she will be charged a service fee for using the ATM, no problem there. When it comes to selecting the amount of money she wants, that's when the problem starts. You see normal human beings want small sums of 500 or 600 shekels. Our female, who we shall call "Danush" wants 9000 shekels. You could buy our entire mall for 9000 shekels!

So Danush repeatedly gets denied her 9000 shekels and carries on doing the same transaction over and over again, expecting the machine to feel sympathetic for her and happen to change its mind. Danush then tries another 4 figure sum and - big surprise - is still denied. Danush absolutely desperate at this point turns to a fellow Australopithecus Mallratus female to ask for help. This female proceeds to explain to her that the stars are not aligned correctly and that she must sacrifice her first born to Alunka the Praying Mantis god of Shopping Malls in order to receive money from the "Caspomat"

This is why I shave my hair. If I had longer hair I would pull it out due to my frustration of the sheer stupidity that encompasses my world and gets in my way. After about half an hour of watching the two females communicate, I finally got my chance to use the ATM. I asked a friend to time me at the ATM while I pulled out an outrageously normal 200 Shekels. It took 25 seconds from the time I put my card in until the time I had my money and had walked away from the ATM. 25 SECONDS, Australopithecus Mallratus, I rest my case.

The other favourite hobby that these primitive creatures have, is getting in my way. No matter where in the Mall I am, inside shops, outside shops, shopping aisles at the supermarket, Australopithecus Mallratus will always do its best to insure that my blood pressure is at its highest by getting in my way.

The point of shopping aisles is to ease the flow of traffic through the shopping centre to create a constant flow whereby shoppers can pick up there goods, walk to the front of the supermarket, pay for their items and leave - hence the name convenience store. However, these idiots make it their objective to park their trolleys across the aisle and speak about things such as which tea diffuses quicker and whether or not that particular washing powder can take the stain of stupid out of their smart shirts.

If people want to talk in the mall, there are plenty of coffee shops and restaurants in which to do so. Aisle 43(Vegetables and Fresh Produce) is not the best venue for the Cohen's bloody family reunion!

All in all, the mall would be a wonderful place if it weren't for the amount of non-evolved peons in it. Its as if their last stronghold exists only within a mall environment where they can question the abilities of such difficult to use devices as plastic shopping bags, toilet seats(don't even get me started on that one), ATM's and parking tickets.

We leave the mall with a parting shot of Danush nursing her young, today was a good day for Danush and the herd but with the drought on its way, the future could possess troublesome times for the last remaining Australopithecus Mallratus in the region. Will they have to migrate south to find water and if so, will Danush and her young survive the treacherous crossing of the Gaia.

A family tradition and other grievances

2006-03-05T19:57:00.000+02:00

Good afternoon fans! Today's topic is very central to me, some of you may have had similar experiences as the one I am about to share, if not, consider yourselves fortunate.

There comes a time in every super-heroes life where he realises his destiny, Spider-Man with the guy who shot his Uncle, Bat-man with which ever girl he was courting that week, Superman when his bald friend went psycho(surprise!) I realised my destiny recently. What I used to think was just my misfortune and bad timing, actually became apparent to me as a family tradition via an epiphany I had in the shower.

Now for those of you who know me quite well, my grandest schemes are born in my shower, if I was an evil super-villain, my secret base would not be an underground lair or a base on a meteor above the earth, my shower would be my fortress of solitude so to speak.

Back to the point, I was born once, and when I was born, my extended family stood together around their new bundle of joy and collectively decided that I would have a mission. Of course no training could ever teach me what I would need to know if I was aware that I was being trained for this particular purpose so my family devised a scheme. It would teach me what I needed to learn and it would do so in such a subtle way that I would never even know I was being taught, until now that is.

I have learned the secret family tradition. Whenever I step into the shower, someone in the house assumes responsibility of playing with the hot water, switching it on and off repeatedly until I have finished showering. At first I thought this was mere coincidence but how many times can something happen on cue, over many years and on both sides of the world, before a person begins to get suspicious. I now realise that this water training was giving me mental and physical skills I could never acquire through normal activities.

Lightening quick reflexes to dodge the cold burst of water, adapting my anger to build into a super-human rage and the time to reflect while waiting for the hot water to return to me. My thoughts in the shower have taught me amazing skills including learning to speak arabic, mad ideas on how to take over the world and other epiphanies that could only have come via the hot/cold water treatment

I have, via this practice, retained my super-powers and will be using them to defeat evil doers as soon as I can find someone to make me an inconspicuous spandex super-hero suit. It will be bright blue and red with a showerhead on top of my hood and disco lights around my waist, like I said, inconspicuous.

Another skill that I have strangely acquired is the ability to instill the desire in strangers to wind down their windows of their cars whilst in traffic to wave at me and honk their hooters. What the benefits of this skill are, I don't quite know but it works like clockwork, as I walk down the street, some random person is bound to wave and hoot frantically with a dumb smile on their face while I stand there dumbfounded by their idiocy.

So citizens, feel safe with the knowledge that Hot/Cold Shower Man will be there to save the day when you need him, unless he is sitting outside in the freezing cold waiting for people to finish Ulpan, but that story is for another day

Our Brave Army - A behind the scenes look

2006-03-03T16:07:00.000+02:00

Just so you all know, this is the second time I am writing this entry, from scratch! Of course the original genius that went into the creation of the first draft can never be fully replaced so you'll just have to bloody deal with it!

Yesterday I went to see two of my very good friends "graduate" from their officer's course. The Israeli Army is well known as one of the greatest armies in the world and when I saw what went on yesterday, I was quite surprised how this is remotely possible. The ceremony was set in Latrun, a memorial site and museum with lots of tanks and other interesting killing machines.

Set on a stage below a few huge tanks on the top of a hill, the ceremony to make these killer boys(and girls) killer men(and ladies) began! All the soldiers marched in and lined up in form. An old officer walked onto center stage with... A Britney Mic! Now I'm all for new technology and all, but when an officer calls his recruits maggots, he should not have to use and amplified sound system to do it. Screaming your lungs out has worked for thousands of years, no need to stop now.

While Britney screamed at the soldiers, another soldier spoke monotonously into a regular standing mic. What he said, we'll never know. Britney then instructed the soldiers to assume their most deadly stance and start... The Hokey Pokey!

Yes, these killing machines, trained through gruelling conditions for months on end, did the Hokey Pokey and it went something like this: "You put your left leg in, you put your left leg out, you put your left leg in and you shake it all about, put your gun against your shoulder when you hear me scream and shout, thats what its all about!" And Britney continued with right leg and other known appendages.

Perhaps I am ignorant, but in the face of war, i don't really think I care whether the guy protecting me has his left leg in or his right leg out. As long as his gun is facing his opponent and he shoots it all about, preferably near the head, I will be more than satisfied. Its not exactly like war is ballet or synchronised swimming(Read drowning) so why do we need to coordinate it as such?

Then I noticed the band. I've never understood bands in modern combat. In the old day when savages ruled the world(not much has changed), bands were used to instill fear into the enemy and to boost morale of the troops. However with the cacophony that this band was producing, the only thing that could possibly have been instilled, is an infringement suit by John Williams. If I was a soldier listening to my band play like that, I would be on the floor in fits of laughter, luckily however, Britney had trained the troops to control themselves and stand at attention when not doing the hokey-pokey. With the way the band was going on I was expecting two jedi to jump onto the stage, armed with lightsabres, ready to duel to the death.

Of course family members in the crowd found that they had no choice but to wave at their beloved soldiers not realising that the soldiers could not reciprocate lest Britney unleash his terrible anger and Macarena upon them. People who wave to other people at inopportune times have always baffled me. These are the kind of people who wave to heart surgeons and even patients, mid surgery!

Several soldiers received honours - underneath the stage! Now I'm no hollywood director but you'd think the guys receiving honours should be receiving them on stage, front and center. These honourable blokes when called upon ran like school girls off the stage, stood with goofy smiles on their faces as if they had done something naughty, were dismissed and then ran like school girls back on to the stage.

The soon-to-be officers were then given a stern lecture from Britney about their responsibilites and the level of respect they had achieved by coming this far. The soldiers took this all in and thought about how they were going home soon to get dressed, go out and get absolutley motherless, pissed out of their minds on every type of alcohol they could get their hands on, including their girlfriends' perfume.

After receiving their badges and being fully promoted to Officer, the troops celebrated the only way they knew how: They through their hats in the air! Of course they picked them up straight away in case Britney got upset.

Speaking of Britney, he was not yet done with the Officers, for his final act he was possessed by the spirit of the Grand Old Duke of York, he marched the hell out of them! Up and down and left and right, he marched them in such a way that he looked like he was trying to recreate and piece by Escher(If you don't know who that is, look it up!). He almost succeeded too!

After that, the waving families stormed the stage and all embraced their little killing machine angels. It was an amazing experience to behold and a proud one too.

So with that I'd like to say congratulations Officers, the people are safe knowing that you will always be there to hokey-pokey the enemy away and listen to bad carnival music in the face of danger

I hate computers

2006-03-03T16:04:00.000+02:00

I just sat writing an entry for half an hour and my computer died as i was finishing it! How cruel is that! I needed to add one more thing and push publish post! Anyways I will redo it now since you are all eager to read it!

It starts

2006-02-28T22:57:00.000+02:00

Just when you thought it was safe to come out of the water! So its take 2 in the blog department, lets see what happens.

Can something interesting be made out of the absolutley mundane? Of course it can! Headline news occurs when a member of the pets of the Royal Family kicks the bucket so anything is possible to generate some excitement. The sick thing is some people actually consider that to be news.

The latest thing on everyone's mind is Dick Cheney's shooting of his lawyer friend instead of a quail. Dan Quayle has apparently stated that he fears for his life however it will not jeopardise the future's being better tomorrow. Chuck Norris when asked mentioned that if he was there in the place of Whittington, he would have roundhouse kicked the bullets, Cheney and the quails all in one kick.

In other interesting news some guy decided to streak during a curling match in Italy. Unfortunately charges of indecent exposure had to be dropped because my father - the only person bored enough to watch curling - was out at the time. Suffice to say the guy must have been a tad self conscious. If he really wants to make an impact next time, the superbowl or soccer world cup finals may be a better option